


Price of Life

by Philosophizes



Series: Wardens of Ferelden [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, Family Issues, Gen, There's some other characters but I'm trying to make my tags more relevant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 10:16:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15410736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosophizes/pseuds/Philosophizes
Summary: There has been too much death in her life for her to not value the living.Josephine; from early childhood to shortly before the Conclave.





	Price of Life

**Author's Note:**

> So as you'll note this is part of a larger series, and as such, this story deviates from canon. Mostly it's in the timeline - both the Qunari Invasion and Meredith going after the Circle happen concurrently in 9:35. _Inquisition_ begins in 9:42. I did this to make the Mage-Templar War and the War of the Lions more of a thing, with a less weird timeline. This fic also references some events and characters from earlier stories in the _Wardens of Ferelden_ series. I think there'll be a minimum of confusion if you haven't read those, and I'd appreciate a comment if you find yourself lost somewhere. Enjoy!

Josephine’s earliest memories are impressions more than anything. They are yelling, primarily – the sound of her father shouting down her mother through a series of closed doors.

Her grandfather holds her in his lap. At this age, all she knows of Akash Changari is that his hands are large and warm, and that he keeps a precise tray of pen nibs on his desk in the estate in Antiva City. He lets her _‘write’_ with them on the backs of contract drafts to get her used to the drag of metal and ink against parchment and paper.

Her grandmother is here, as well. Antona Montilla is a sailor and a merchant. Her husband keeps the books while she takes the sea. At this age, all Josephine knows is that her _Isedona_ is old. She does not know that her father has been suborning the crews to keep her on dry land, because he feels that she has too many years to be _‘galivanting about’_.

Her _Isedona_ holds Antonu, the next youngest, named for her. The nursemaid has baby Iveta. Josephine holds up the old pen to her _Isedonu_ so he can change the nib for her, and asks again where her older brother is.

“Lauro is gone, _chote_ ,” her grandfather tells her again.

He does not say: _It is your father’s fault._ She will learn that, in time.

Josephine puts lines on the parchment that don’t actually make writing but are good enough for her, trying to ignore her parents’ yelling.

* * *

What Josephine does not remember is the last time she sees her mother. Raphael has been born. This, she remembers, because her parents do not fight for the time she is laid up in bed, recovering.

She remembers the first argument they have afterwards. It is over a letter. When she is older, Josephine will be able to say that this letter was from her _Grandmere_ Felicienne, telling her only daughter that her elder brother’s widow has died. Yves Montilyet does not want his wife to go to Eziores for the funeral.

 _She remarried after Alexandre died,_ her father argues. _They never had children – they didn’t even see a year!_

 _Clarisse was Edouard’s sister!_ her mother snarls back in outrage. _You are his friend! You would insult him by not going!_

Right now, all Josephine knows is that her parents are arguing again. _Isedona_ is on her last voyage as captain of the family fleets and _Isedonu_ is visiting his niece, the eighty-ninth Seer of Kont-aar. There is no one to hold her, or distract her. She is five. Antonu is two and Yvette is less than a year old and Raphael has not yet seen two months. They are the responsibility of the nursemaid, and she cannot spare time for Josephine.

Lilie de Serrault leaves for Orlais without her husband or any of her children. Josephine does not mark the day she goes, except for a particularly loud argument. It carries through the house, the roar and the shriek of words – Trade, Antivan, Orlesian, Rivaini. She wakes to the noise in the morning and stays in her room until night, falling asleep to silence.

* * *

It is only when her _Isedonu_ returns and her mother has not that Josephine realizes she must ask where her mother is. She is used to people coming and going – their family is a merchant family, and business takes people where it will.

 _Isedonu_ returns. He is worn, and tired.

“Kangera warned me,” he says to himself, as he stands in the foyer of the estate. The servants are taking his bags and Josephine ignores them to get a hug. He lifts her up and holds her, her arms around his neck.

“Where is _Mamma_?” she asks.

“Your mother has gone to Orlais,” her _Isedonu_ tells her. “For a funeral. The spirits told your cousin Kangera that she is not coming back.”

Josephine does not know too much about this. She knows her cousin Kangera is a great Seer, as was her other cousin and _Isedonu_ ’s mother was before her. Her _Isedonu_ has told her that Seeing runs in the Changari line, and that she is of that blood as much as she is of Montilla, and as such should trust her feelings. So she cries, because she feels that her mother not returning means a storm at sea.

It is not that. Lilie has not died. She returned to Serrault, to her mother and brother and great-aunt. She doesn’t want to live with Yves any longer. She left him their children and took back her dowry.

 _Isedona_ is angry when she returns. Josephine doesn’t like it. She fights with _Papa_ and there is yelling again in the estate.

* * *

The day after Josephine’s sixth birthday, _Isedonu_ introduces her to a woman. She is not so old as _Isedonu_ or _Isedona_ , but she is older than _Papa_. There is a boy with her. He seems Josephine’s age.

“This is your _Hita_ Armida,” he tells her. “And your cousin Jagari.”

Josephine did not know that she’d had an aunt, or any cousins but Seer Kangera.

 _Papa_ never mentioned them because Armida Montilla is a mage, _Isedonu_ explains; and her father doesn’t like that. He is more Orlesian than Rivaini.

“We are Antivan!” Josephine corrects him proudly, armed with the surety of a young child.

 _Isedonu_ smiles.

“Antivan, Rivaini,” he says. “What difference is there? We are cousin-people, with all the marrying we do. Asha Campana was Rivaini before she became Queen of Antiva. Your _Isedona_ ’s mother married a Rivaini woman. Her mother had a Rivaini mother. We share too much to be truly divided by some laws and the lines on a map.”

 _Hita_ Armida is part of the Circle at Dairsmuid. She is an Enchanter. She would not be, she tells Josephine, but for the fact her first magic came in one of the great plazas during Satinalia, and the Templars picked her up. Otherwise, _Isedonu_ and _Isedona_ would have sent her to her to Rivain, to her grandmother – the eighty-seventh Seer of Kont-aar, the _famous_ one. But she was taken to the Circle at Antiva City, by Fort Palace; and her brother never spoke of her if he could help it. She first met him after the family connections got her transferred to Dairsmuid.

“Ivo is a man set in his mind,” _Hita_ Armida tells her. “He would be Orlesian. But Orlesians hate magic and fear mages, and the only fear one should have of a Seer is crossing one. So, _chote_ , you will tell me if you dream, just as my son does.”

Josephine does. Her days are lessons. Antonu and Iveta are still too young for this, so she and Jagari have _Hita_ Armida to themselves. She wakes; she eats. She goes to _Hita_ and _Isedonu_ and they listen to her dreams. Then they have her practice her writing. She learns the Justinian script first, in the standard hand. Then in the Antivan. Then the Serraultine. She learns to figure – addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. _Isedonu_ teaches her accounting and Rivaini. _Hita_ teaches her and Jagari history and literature.

 _Isedona_ and _Papa_ argue ferociously. _Papa_ does not like _Hita_ in the house. _Isedona_ won’t let him make her leave.

By the time Antonu is old enough for lessons, Josephine is eight and _Isedonu_ is taking her out to the markets and the shops to learn about the goods the merchants sell. She learns a bit about all of them – production, raw materials, usual costs, skill levels, quality of product, demand.

Jagari comes along. Josephine is not entirely sure why. She is fond of her cousin, but he has not been learning accounting. Surely he is not meant to be a merchant?

But the outings are more fun with him around. They take breaks for lunch, and _Isedonu_ sits on the rims of plaza fountains and talks with whoever comes by, letting the two of them wander about the markets and join in the games of other children.

Something she learns about but Jagari does not is keeping a household. Managing servants, overseeing the productions of the estate. The Montilla family, like so many, has vineyards in the country for making wine. There is a plum orchard too, for fruit brandy. In the gardens in the estate in Antiva City, there are a few fig trees. The house makes a small quantity of very strong dessert liquor from the fruits. Josephine prefers them fresh and whole from the tree, or as the filling in a sort of bread pastry.

Against her _Papa_ ’s wishes, she is allowed on the flagship of the family’s fleet – the _Gondise_. The name simply means _‘big ship’_ , and it certainly is. She is not allowed to be on it while it sails, but tied up in dock, she learns sailing terminology and watches how the hold is packed with different goods. She observes while the hull is cleaned, and the ballast replaced.

 _Isadona_ teaches her knots on old bits of ship rope, on the top deck in the summer sun. _Papa_ ’s face goes pinched when she proudly shows him her roughening hands.

* * *

Antona Montilla is seventy-two years old when she dies. Josephine is ten, and she cries for her _Isedona_ in a way she never did for her mother. Lilie de Serrault is long gone, a memory. _Isedona_ had stayed.

 _Papa_ banishes _Hita_ from the house within hours. Josephine sees her at the funeral, but her _Papa_ ordered the nanny to hold her back, so she does not get to hug Armida Montilla before she is returned to the Circle.

Jagari stays with them. He is thirteen, and old enough that he is very unlikely to develop magic. That is why he was not taught accounting or household management – if he had developed magic, he would have been studied it, and then be married off to some Rivaini matriarch’s daughter.

 _Isedonu_ is tired. He was ten years older than his wife. The Changari have always lived to an older age than most. Sometimes, it takes its toll.

It is summer, and he grieves. Jagari has important training in merchant skills to learn. _Isedonu_ arranges for him to begin his tutelage under an old friend and sometimes-business partner.

Josephine he sends to the ships.

Captain Sajita is the woman who took over the ships from _Isedona_ when she stopped sailing. The fleet still answers to the Montillas, of course – but _Papa_ is not a sailor. Captain Sajita very much is. She is not the same as _Isedona_ , but the familiarity comforts Josephine. When they meet for the first time, she calls her _‘Isefina’_ , the way _Isedona_ always had.

Josephine is not allowed on the long voyages. She is too small to be a cabin girl, but she is allowed to assist on the short jaunts Captain Sajita sometimes takes along the Antivan coast. Her job is to fetch and carry, watch and learn.

 _Isedonu_ is not the sailor _Isedona_ was, but he questions her on what she learned all the same. When the last harvest passes, and Josephine is not allowed on the off-season ships at all, he teaches her about navigation. He rolls out the star charts, the sea maps, the sheets and sheets of detailed drawings of the coastlines of Thedas showing the currents and prevailing winds and natural harbors. She learns to use the sextant, the telescope, the compass, the divider caliper, the astrolabe and the nocturlabe. _Isedonu_ shows her computation tables and nautical almanacs. In the spring, she proves she knows how to use the tools by drafting a map of the country estate, distances and scale measured as accurately as she can. She sees Jagari again – he is learning the lessons she was once taught about managing the business of the family properties.

She will draft better maps, in the future. But it is a very good first attempt. _Isedonu_ sends her back to the ships and Captain Sajita.

* * *

Josephine is thirteen, old enough to mind her brothers and sister. _Isedonu_ is becoming frail, and so she and Jangari the ones to take Iveta and Raphael around to the markets and workshops, doing their best to explain what they had been taught. _Isedonu_ comes along, most days; but he tires easily. Iveta and Raphael are not learning as fast or as much as Josephine did.

Better is Antonu. He is ten, and can come along to Captain Sajita.

Thirteen is old enough to be a cabin girl. Jagari is sixteen, and while he does not have her experience, Captain Sajita takes him on, as well. Part of her job is to show her cousin the basic jobs and daily functions of the _Gondise._

Antonu is the who takes the short voyages, now. _Josephine_ gets to sail across Rialto Bay to Dairsmuid. _Hita_ Armida meets them there, and she and Jagari spend two days with her. Seeing her _Hita_ is exciting, and this has been her first true sea voyage, and she is triumphant upon her return to Antiva City. She has seen Rivain. In two weeks, Captain Sajita will be sailing to Wycome. She and Jagari will see the Free Marches.

She loses the feeling in short order. _Isedonu_ has died while they were at sea. Akash Changari lived eighty-five years. It was not enough.

Her _Papa_ insists on a Chantry funeral. _Isedona_ had had one, but Josephine knows that _Isedonu_ had wanted a Rivaini sea burial. She tries to tell him. He doesn’t listen. She tries again.

“We are _Andrasteans,_ Josephine,” he scowls at her. “We do not harbor mages or drown the dead. You are Antivan and Orlesian, and it is time you _learned_ that.”

Josephine steals her _Isedonu_ ’s ashes and flings them into the sea. Her father doesn’t notice, because she returns the urn. The servants report her saying the Rivaini prayers, though, and she is punished all the same.

* * *

She is not allowed back to the ships. None of the children are. Her father hires three tutors to replace _Isedonu_ – one for Iveta and Raphael, one for Antonu, and one for Josephine.

Jagari is ignored. Josephine would think that her father has forgotten him, but he attends dinner as part of the family. Yves Montilyet is simply pretending he does not exist.

“Are you leaving?” she asks him. It is the middle of the night and she is somewhat stuffy from crying. They are sitting on his bed – Josephine brought her own blanket from her room, and Jagari has an arm around her. She keeps losing people. She does not think she could stand another one.

“ _Nama_ wants me to finish learning,” Jagari tells her. “I’ll be with _Maestra_ Itradi for a while yet.”

This is comforting. The Itradis live the next neighborhood over. He stay here, exactly as he has been.

She keeps learning the arts and sciences with her new tutor. She is fine with this. She likes the accounting, and the navigational math, and the writing. But she outstrips her tutor’s knowledge in short order; and the woman’s _true_ skills come out.

Madame Renette Champre de Alyons is a _deportment_ mistress. She teaches manners, dancing. Elegance. Social conversation. This is a different sort of calculation. Josephine does not _mind_ learning this, though she enjoyed the other subjects more. The true problem lies in that she doesn’t see the need for all this extra _time_ she has that the woman wants her to practice her manners in. There are better things to be doing, Josephine is sure.

Her father does not agree. She is the heir to the family and the Montilyets have a rightful place in Orlais and they _will_ retake it.

“Orlesian manners will serve me in society parties,” Josephine agrees. Her father loves parties. She has not been to one, but the light and noise sometimes keep her up at night, when he hosts rather than going elsewhere as a guest. “But this is _Antiva_ , _Papa_. I must be able to serve here as well.”

“ _Lauro_ serves this family in Antiva.”

Josephine had forgotten Lauro. Her older brother, at least for a time. It has been nine years, his place has been solidly occupied by Jagari. She doesn’t know what happened to him, but – he died, didn’t he? The first in her string of lost family.

* * *

Lauro is not dead. Her father gave him to the Crows, young, so that he could become a Crow all the faster.

Josephine knows about the Crows. She is Antivan – she _couldn’t_ not know about the Crows. She was never exactly taught about them, but they are a fact of life. Her family is no longer so rich that anyone bothers to involve them in intrigue or business deals that could mean assassins, but they happen.

Her father wants her to serve the family in Orlais. He wants her to become a Bard.

Josephine is not sure about this. She is a Montilla – she is made for the sea, to sail and trade, to calculate navigations and accounts.

Her father, for all his wants and plans, knows at least that. Josephine uses the skills Madame Champre teaches her to bargain him around. She will learn deportment and etiquette from Madame Champre, and go to Orlais for further education. But before she leaves, she will have an academic tutor and span of time acting as an apprentice in the family dockyards. Repair and construction is the last thing she has to learn about ships, and she will not disappoint her ancestors by neglecting it. She doesn’t tell her father that part.

She speaks Antivan and Rivaini in the dockyards and answers to Isefina. She speaks Orlesian in the weekly classes with Madame Champre and answers to Josephine. Madame Champre disapproves of her shipbuilding apprenticeship, but can say nothing outright. Josephine learns to win a debate without arguing, and with only obliquely referencing the subject at all. It is the sort of conversational skill she is meant to learn, so Madame Champre can say nothing at all.

For the first year, this is her life. A year, so that she knows dockyards in all seasons. Madame Champre spends more time teaching Iveta than anyone else – Iveta very much likes deportment and etiquette.

Her present for Satinalia in her fourteenth year is her academic tutor. Raheer Maelni is a Rivaini man who found he loved Antiva as much as the country of his birth. He is a scholar, unaffiliated with the Chantry, and so reads Tevene texts without spiritual reservations. He is technically in the employ of the King, but some incident between nobles came to Crows, and her father snagged him by being a noble in Antiva City but not a name at Court. He will not draw attention to himself here in the Montilla estate, while he waits for the situation to calm.

Josephine _adores_ him. As planned, she now divides her week three ways – one day with Madame Champre, one day with Raheer Maelni, two days in the dockyards, and the Chantry day off. She keeps studying and reading on the Chantry day, and barely pays attention to the services, she is so entrenched in examining what she has learned and composing questions for _Maestra_ Maelni.

He introduces her to philosophy and ethics. He expands upon her knowledge of history, taking her further afield and looking at different events from different viewpoints wherever he has the material to do so. He passes on modern mathematical works from the Circles in the Imperium that she barely understands, and while he is no mathematician, he does his best to help her. They puzzle over them together. She learns to read and speak Tevene, and _Maestra_ Maelni rewards her with engineering treatises printed by the Ambassadoria. She learns some Nevarran, and bits and pieces of lesser-status languages. He gives her the major theological texts of both the Orlesian and Tevene Chantries – as well as illicit copies of the Dissonant Verses from both and an overview of the Qun.

Josephine cuts down her days in the dockyards ahead of schedule to have more time with him. He is the youngest teacher she’s ever had, and is purely engaged in a way she’s never seen. It fires her intellect. She _wants_ to go to the University, now. She agreed to the University of Orlais and wishes her father could ever be convinced to send her to the University of Markham instead, or the Collegia of Vyrantium. But the Free Marches are not Orlais, and her father does not approve of magic. The University of Orlais is more academic than it has ever been, under Empress Celene’s funding; but it is still primarily a place of the Chantry and for the nobility to be seen. In Markham, she could study the natural sciences. In Vyrantium, there is unparalleled study of history and academic theory.

She says nothing about this to _Maestra_ Maelni, but the way she takes in knowledge tells him everything he needs to know. When he has no more historical resources to offer her, he writes letters introducing her to his scholarly contacts. When there are no more religious studies to be had without formally attending a theological study, he brings books on _magic._

Even more illicit than the Dissonant Verses and the Qun, the secrecy of learning magical theory, even without being a mage herself, gives her a heady thrill that is so much like balancing on the footropes of a yard arm in the wind to manage the sails that Josephine’s heart soars. _Maestra_ Maelni teaches her of the Fade, and spirits and demons, and mana. She learns sets of runes and glyphs she will never be able to use, and recreates them with calligraphy on spare ends of cardstock in colored inks, slipping them in Jagari’s notebook in the evenings. When he comes back in the afternoons from working at the Itradi’s bank, he ruffles her hair and kisses the top of her head. They remind him of his mother.

Her letters to her _Hita_ Armida in Dairsmuid now contain questions about spells that she cannot find answers to in the books. She knows her father would never let her visit, nor approve of the track her education has taken, but he has put no watches on her mail and pays little attention to _Maestra_ Maelni. _Hita_ Armida writes her back with detail, and she gains a new perspective to go along with the Chantry and Tevene books _Maestra_ Maelni is able to provide her with.

 After her fifteenth birthday, as planned, Josephine no longer goes to the dockyards. She has two days with Madame Champre and two days with _Maestra_ Maelni but she wishes she could have three. Without choosing a specialization and studying under the correct scholar, or attending a truly academic university, he doesn’t have much left to teach her. They mostly talk, and Josephine keeps up her correspondence and learns Old Antivan to pass the rest of the time.

As the year progresses, her father becomes more and more attentive of her. She will be going to Val Royeaux soon, after all. Things are going his way. Josephine smiles agreeably and wonders what she will study at the University – history? literature? language? law? mathematics? – and considers bringing along her star charts.

* * *

Val Royeaux is stunningly beautiful.

The University is exhaustingly dull.

Josephine has no particularly interest in theology, and theology permeates _everything_ here. The law is Chantry law. The literature is religious texts and Orlesian classics. History is the Chant with less cadence and the official annals of the Drakon and Valmont dynasties. Language is Orlesian and Tevene. The mathematics is not laughably basic, but there is nothing that she has not already studied.

She gravitates towards the art and music classes for lack of anything better. There _are_ serious, dedicated scholars here – but they are either firmly Chantry, or so specialized in one particular topic that unless she defies her heritage and becomes an academic, she cannot bring herself to devote the time and attention needed.

At the very least, Val Royeaux is a good place to study architecture. Josephine comes to it from the mathematical angle of engineering calculations while the other students are there for the aesthetics and the art of it. This is no bad thing, and Josephine loves the beauty of the look as much as the math that lets it stand, and it is here that she makes her friends.

Lady Catalina Vallesti is the first. Like Josephine, she is the daughter of an Antivan merchant house. Unlike Josephine, she is here to find an Orlesian husband.

Lady Vallesti introduces her to Lord Enzo of Rialto, a cousin thrice-removed from King Fulgendo. He is courteous and charming, and surprised by her age. Josephine is sixteen. Lady Vallesti is twenty-two. Lord Enzo is twenty-five. Most students at the University are such.

Lord Enzo is close to royalty, and that is more than enough for Orlais. He takes her to an early winter party thrown by Lothar Doucy, a Comte – and Josephine is launched into Orlesian society. The winter passes in a swirl of balls and conversations, short outings in the city, and Josephine makes enough connections and receives enough invitations that she is among the first people in Orlais to hear of the Blight in Ferelden.

* * *

She describes tension that settles over the city as _‘palpable’_ in her letters to Jagari. For an entire month, there are no parties or gatherings of note as the nobility follow Imperial orders to prepare for the eventuality of a darkspawn horde. Josephine manages by studying. She is going through her coursework faster than her professors can manage when the Chevaliers are called to the Exalted Plains and the tension explodes.

Josephine receives twenty invitations to parties in an hour, that first day. Everyone who is anyone is determined to hold a farewell for their brother or cousin or son or nephew. She curates carefully, and plots out a schedule and route that means she can appear at the most parties as possible.

She is partway through the night, traveling between parties, when she nearly stumbles upon a secretive assignation. A hand darts out from nowhere and pulls her into the shadows – Josephine is too startled to go for the knife tucked away in her skirts.

It is a good thing. The assignation is a matter of political betrayal, and the man who pulled her out of the light is Toulien Arsignac. A Bard.

He winks, he smiles, he puts a finger to lips for silence – and Josephine shadows him the way she once did Captain Sajita, watching and learning.

* * *

It is the thrill she’s been missing. The excitement of secrets, the puzzle of intrigue, the _stimulation._ Josephine has never exactly rejected her father’s goal of her becoming a Bard, but _this_ -

The spring and summer of 9:30 Dragon is a hotbed of secrets, betrayals, and scandals. The Chevaliers are gone, and it is the Fifth Blight, and the Empress has fixed grain prices – and the nobility were _living._

“A toast!” Atrin Bienca declares, one late spring evening. He is one of her circle, another young Antivan Bard. “To death!”

 _Joie de fatalité,_ the Orlesians call it. Death is coming, but it is far away – who knows what could happen?

It is a heady thing, and Josephine becomes drunk on it. Her classes at the University fall away. She goes to party after party after party, trading secrets and champagne and kisses. There is nothing like it, nothing else that has this glamor. This glitter. This scintillating fascination, this interplay of words and actions. This primacy of _meaning,_ of _being._

It all comes crashing down when Atrin Bienca does. The sick feeling in her stomach is not the same as the pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs, but Josephine can feel it spread through her body just as sure as the crimson had spread across the tile.

Classes at the University only help for so long. She forces herself through the autumn while her friends and acquaintances continue living in the joy of fatality. Perhaps others die. She doesn’t know. She is taking test after test, as quickly as she can.

She fails none of them. She never even comes close to it.

A perplexed Dean officiates her degree in the early winter. She has attended the University of Orlais for only thirteen and a half months.

* * *

Baron Edouard Desjardins comes out from Lydes when he hears about her graduation. Josephine only knows him from reputation, as it were – it was his sister’s funeral that her mother had used to escape Antiva. He is a friend of her father’s, but Yves Montilyet has always traveled to Orlais to see him, never the other way around.

The Baron finds her in her rooms. She has not managed to leave them for days, and is faint for want of food. She takes truly sick when he tries to feed her a full meal.

He is an adept player of the Game. He spirits her out of Val Royeaux with none the wiser, and ensconces her in his townhouse in Lydes. It is here that Jagari finds her, some weeks later. Josephine is huddled in one of the sitting rooms, trying to find the will to do something, _anything,_ when there is a great commotion at the front door. The Baron is yelling, and the voices of his guards are raised and indignant, and Jagari is yelling them _all_ down, switching between Orlesian and Rivaini while he vents his fury at the Baron for _‘abducting’_ her.

Josephine cannot make herself rise and go to the door.

 _“Fina,”_ he says when he sees her, and leans over awkwardly to hug her in her chair. Hugging him back, she discovers, is something she can do. “If Orlais disagrees with you so much, you should have come home no matter what your father thinks. You did not need to do this to yourself to graduate.”

“It isn’t Orlais,” is somehow one of the hardest things she has said.

She has not told Baron Desjardins about why she is like this. He has been polite and considerate, and not pressed the issue beyond calling in a doctor to see her once she had been fed out of her sickness. Josephine appreciates him and his efforts.

But she tells Jagari everything. He squeezes himself into the large stuffed chair with her, and but for his fashionably-trimmed, full beard, it could be like the late nights in Antiva City when sleep was hard to find. He learns about the dreariness of the University. The maneuvering of the parties. The excitement of finding information, of strategically passing it on, of seeing it pulled out in conversations and wielded as precisely as any stiletto. The thrill of near misses. The heady celebrations at a success. The tussle at the top of the stairs. The muffled rapid thuds as Atrin had tumbled down the stairs. The wet _smack_ of his head cracking against the tiles.

Josephine cries. It does not help much; but Jagari’s presence is comforting and warm.

He does not stay long. He cannot. There is banking to be done in Antiva, and while the Itredis are not inconsiderate, the movement of money in a place that relies on trade for its wellbeing cannot be left for long. Jagari leaves her with an exhortation to be well, and if Orlais does not help, to go to Kont-aar and seek the help of their cousin Kangera.   

She and Baron Desjardins stay in Lydes until news reaches them that the Blight was over. Josephine is little improved, so he takes her to the mountains to avoid the upcoming spring social season. They stay with Pierre du Lion, Marquis of Emprise du Lion. His children are also the children of the deceased Clarisse Desjardins, who had been married to Josephine’s uncle Alexandre de Serrault for the seven months before his death. That makes the Marquis’s children her cousins, of a sort. By a certain light.

Well, the ones by his wife. He had taken up officially with his commoner mistress after Clarisse’s death. His legitimized bastard is a son her own age. Rosaire is kind and considerate, and an aspiring scholar.

The chill mountain air and Rosaire’s enthusiasm pull her slowly out of her depression. At first she simply joins Rosaire for reading time in the library, but then it became meals with the family. Then riding around Eziores. Then accompanying Rosaire on some excursions through the mountains to look at old ruins of the Dales.

She writes Raheer Maelni about them, and then picks up her other correspondence, a few people at a time. The people she knew in Val Royeaux express their delight at hearing from her and their best wishes for her stay in the mountains. Her academic contacts congratulate her on her stunningly quick graduation.

 _Maestra_ Maelni has resumed his work at Court, in a slightly different position. He invites her to join him.

By summer, she is ready to go. Edouard kindly escorts her to Jader to take ship, and she resolves to keep in touch with him. He has been accommodating and gentle, looking after her during her depression.

* * *

She is even more thankful for her Uncle Edouard when she arrives in Antiva City to find that her father has heard nothing of her period of sickness.

He _has_ heard of her graduation. But he assumed she would be staying in Val Royeaux.

Yves Montilyet is not happy to find his eldest daughter returned from Orlais. He is working himself up into a state about her need to be a Bard when she picks up her bags and walks away. She arrives at _Maestra_ Maelni’s rooms at the palace with only what she’d managed to carry. He is taken aback to see her, but lets her stay for a couple of days while she contacts Jagari and makes arrangements. He moved out of the Montilla estate after she left for Orlais, and now rents his own reasonably-appointed apartment with the money he earns working for the Ibari bank.

Josephine gets herself moved in with him, and then accompanies _Maestra_ Maelni to the Secretariat for lack of other options.

The Montillas have never been a Nuncio family, but even so, she knows that _Maestra_ Maelni’s position here is a bit odd. He is not an administrator, despite his literacy and planning abilities; and nor is he diplomat, no matter how well he can conduct himself at Court. No, he is valued here for his learning and his cultural knowledge. He assists in matters where historical perspective is needed to attain the desired result.

It is not glamourous. There is little glitter or sparkle. But it is all the things she truly enjoyed about being a Bard, without the distraction and the violence. Diplomats and negotiators build instead of tearing down, and would rather spend time than blood.

It is also somewhere she can speak of her knowledge. In Orlais, such learning as hers was not fashionable. It was not the done thing to apply one’s self to intellectual pursuits if you were serious about playing the Game. Intellect was a _quality._ Nothing could be _work._

Antiva does not endorse such illusions. With her degree and _Maestra_ Maelni’s endorsement, her position in the Secretariat as his assistant becomes official. She is in the employ of the Crown, and has her own income.

That is important. Her father is not paying for her. He still wishes her to return to Orlais and be a Bard, advancing the family interests and re-establishing their mercantile power there.

Josephine is not opposed to his ultimate desires. She cares for her family legacy and name just as much as her father does – but she will do this _her_ way.

* * *

Still, she is invited to Satinalia dinner, because family is family. It does not hurt that her father has heard of her work in the Secretariat, and that she has been noticed by certain highly-placed officials.

When Josephine arrives for the dinner, Lauro is there.

She has not seen him since he was five. He is nineteen now. He is only a year older than her, but she learns over the course of the dinner that he became a graduated Crow the year before and took over House Escipo – _his_ House, her brother is Master Escipo, one of the Talons of the Crows – at about the same time she had been returning from Orlais. There was some business with upheavals and deaths within the organization and Josephine sits with all grace and decorum at her place at the table and smiles genially across the food at a murderer.

She is a murderer too, of course. She has not forgotten this. But it was a singular mistake that she made, not a willful pattern and a job that she discusses with apparent excitement.

Her father made Lauro this.

Her father would have her be like this.

Josephine does not recognize the young man across from her as her brother. Granted, she was very young when Lauro was sent to the Crows – but what little she remembers of him is not this. She does not know this man and she does not love him. He is a Crow, and to be avoided.

After dinner he becomes drunk. He is surly, snappish; until finally he begins to cry and yell. It has been many years now since Josephine has heard yelling carry through the estate, and it is worse when she is in the same room. The eldest three of them are here in this sitting room with their father, and Josephine is torn away from the uncomfortable look she is sharing with Antonu by the sound of shattering glass.

Lauro has broken his empty bottle on the window sill. He lashes out at their father and she sits frozen. The candle light shines on the sharp edges of the glass and it takes her father across the arm. Blood spatters onto the carpet and Lauro is drunk enough that the woven wool trips him up. He goes crashing to the floor.

Josephine springs up from her chair, grabs Antonu, and sprints out of the room.

* * *

Her younger siblings stay the night with her and Jagari. Antonu is shaken and trembling. Iveta wants to go home to the comforting safety of _her_ rooms. Raphael sits in the corner and makes no sound all night.

She expects a runner in the morning informing her that her father is dead. That runner never comes. Instead, Iveta’s lady’s maid knocks on the door mid-morning. Lauro has left, and her father is injured but in no further danger.

Josephine cannot prevent them from being returned, no matter how much she wants to. Antonu still seems haunted and she is certain that Iveta will curl up in her bed with some fluff romance book to escape the fear and Raphael – she does not know Raphael well enough to think what he might do.

The only option she has is to stay away from the estate. It is the only measure of safety she has, because this is Antiva City and the Crows are ever-present. He could find her anywhere, if he wished to do her harm; but at the very least she will not have to see him _in her home._

When _Maestra_ Maelni is invited to accompany King Fulgendo’s ambassador to the Imperium, she cannot leave Antiva fast enough.

* * *

Perhaps it is the anticipation that made Val Royeaux so enticing upon first look. It has been a bit over two years since she saw the city for the first time, and surely that is not long enough for her outlook to change so drastically.

Minrathous is another architecturally pleasing city, and it carries the weight of its history. Josephine thinks that she should find it just as beautiful as Orlais, but she does not.

Still, she is out of Antiva. The Crows come rarely to the Imperium, so she is safe here. She helps _Maestra_ Maelni compile dossiers for the ambassador on the noble families and the political climate; their breaks are spent meeting some of her academic correspondents in person. Lord Tomirian shows her the library of the Circle of Minrathous, and it is a glorious thing.

The party to welcome the ambassador is not. A small group of Magisters get into an argument, and begin emphasizing their points with magic. One of them grabs a passing elf and slices his arm entire arm open. By the time the Magisters have had their duel, he has died. The blood does not pool across the tiles because the magic used it all up. The Magister with the bloody knife makes her apologies to the Archon and pays him for the price of his used slave.

They are scheduled to be in Minrathous for some weeks still – there will be many more parties she will need to attend. Some will be with the other diplomats sent to the Archon’s Court from across Thedas. Some will be at the Ambassadoria and heavily feature the Merchants’ Guild. But most will be composed of Magisters.

When Josephine sees an argument forming two nights later, she takes a breath and smiles and when one insults the other by name she springs into the conversation, playing the enamored young scholar. She flatters the man’s mind and his magic, and engages his opponent in a discussion that she carefully steers with questions that make her seem informed but intellectually unthreatening.

Both Magisters fall into lecturing mode. When she is certain the original argument is long forgotten, she gently ends the emerging scholarly debate by asking after one of the men’s colleagues. He is more than happy to continue educating the precious young southerner who is cultured enough to be educated on magic without having any herself, and takes her off.

By the time she and _Maestra_ Maelni return to Antiva, Josephine has been invited to stay in contact by a handful of Imperial nobility with various positions at the Circles and in the Imperial Chantry. None of them are especially high-ranking, but none of them hold anything but a solidly respectable office. She was not always able to defuse beginning arguments, but she could occupy any slaves near enough to be in danger with requests that sent them elsewhere to check on drinks or space for her in a quiet room. As far as she knows, no one was killed at the parties she had attended. There may have been people killed before or those who died in duels or of poison afterwards, but no one was bled to death.

* * *

Her work does not go unnoticed. She goes along when _Maestra_ Maelni is sent to Nevarra. Throughout the trip, she cannot not figure out why he has been chosen – Nevarra is not a place he has ever been for study, nor does he have any contacts here. If he had, she would have had Mortalitasi texts to read when he had been tutoring her.

Josephine only learns on the way home that the reason he had been sent to Nevarra was because _she_ was his assistant.

“The Minister of the Secretariat is always looking for those who can be both competent _and_ comfortable for the Nunciature, Isefina,” he tells her. “It is easy to place envoys and ambassadors in some places. The Free Marches. Ferelden. Rivain. It is much harder in places where magic and the higher class go hand-in-hand. There are not so many as you think, who can attend a Magister’s party and not flinch from the magic. Nor face a Mortalitasi and be unconcerned by the corpses and the spirits they house.”

The Ambassador to Nevarra is by custom a Crow, Josephine knows, because of those corpses. It is no secret that Nuncio Caldera Lanos is also Master Lanos, the head of one of the Talon Houses. She had been introduced to him, and he had asked over the wellbeing of her brother. The corpses were preferable.

Nevarra had been a test. When they are again in Antiva City, Josephine receives a summons to the office of the Minister. She goes.

Baronessa Gioconda Campana is the Minister of the Secretariat and the younger aunt of King Fulgendo. In other nations, the third daughter of the royal house would not have been the most accomplished – but the late Queen Cestrada had been controlled by the Crows, as all monarchs of Antiva were; and the middle daughter Emilia had married Emperor Judicael and been Empress of Orlais for a time, but her sons had both died in infancy. Baronessa Gioconda controls Antiva’s diplomacy through the Nunciature and the administration of the state through the larger bulk of the Secretariat. She is married Tamar Echevarra, the beloved younger sister of Biotrondo Echevarra, current head of the one of the merchant families so powerful they can get away with styling themselves _‘Prince’_ on occasion. The power all this affords her is immense. Only the Grandmaster of the Crows outclasses her, and possibly the Grand Cleric.

Josephine curtsies low, and the Baronessa bids her sit for coffee and chocolate. The afternoon conversation is an interrogation, she does not need to be told; though she does not know the exact reason or the outcome.

She is sent from the office with a commission to the Antivan embassy in Wycome. She is nineteen and a Junior Nuncio.

* * *

Wycome is known for its parties. Nowhere else do private parties regularly turn into street festivals, or Chantry holidays become citywide parties. Debauchery abounds, there are copious amounts of imported Antivan wine, you can reinvent yourself day-by-day, and anything can be had for the right money.

Josephine is not expecting to find an enclave of intellectuals. They are young, reasonably well-connected children of minor nobility or influential merchants. She is of exactly the right social standing to fit in, and has the education and credentials to stand out. She suspects that this is the reason why the Baronessa assigned her here – the Ambassador is a middle-aged masculine woman of royal descent who hunts and drinks with the outdoors-loving nobles and knights, while the Senior Nuncios are men of parties, sex, and wine. They can go nearly anywhere in the city and be enthusiastically welcome, while the Ambassador has Wycome’s outlying land memorized. The only places they cannot cover are the cafés, the salons, and the Alienage.

She is a natural fit for two, and there are enough radical-leaners within the salon crowd that while Josephine is not actually familiar with the Alienage, she knows more than most humans do. Her days are filled with political conversation and fortified teas or coffees. Wycome is close enough to the Antivan border to know how to brew both properly, but has not quite grasped chocolate. Josephine always gets groups of twenty or more when she hosts at the embassy, because there _will_ be chocolate, hot or chilled depending on the weather.

It is through the salons that she meets Guinevere Volant. She reminds Josephine of the sorts of young nobles she might have met at the University, had she studied there longer and spent more time at professors’ parties. Guinevere is a kind woman, somewhat quiet. She is not scholar and does not soak in learning like Josephine, but there is a love of knowledge there that draws them together.

Guinevere is in Wycome because her brother and sister-in-law like each other well enough, but wish for an open marriage the likes of which would be a scandal in Orlais, especially to country nobility like her parents. Her brother and sister-in-law take advantage of the parties and are quickly going into debt, but Guinevere has come to meet people. She does not much like the Grand Game, and is managing some small investments with Antivan merchant houses in the hopes that she will be able to retire in comfort without having to spend much time at any court.

Josephine finds her comfortable, and comforting. Before long they are calling on each other without other company. They go out together arm-in-arm. It is an easy slide into later evenings at each other’s residences, and from there into dates at the smaller and less baudy theaters to see stage plays and chamber music. There are kisses and giggles and picnics, without pressures or expectations. Guinevere does not care for marriage, Josephine has yet to do else than resolve not to come to parenthood young and unprepared as her mother had done, and both of them treasure their friendship more than any other aspect of their relationship.

It is not the love of a sort that leads to courtship, but it awakens in Josephine a certain longing for romance she had not previously considered. In between periods of work, she idly daydreams of someone with a capacity for passion that made them heartfelt in their emotions, who would love her for everything she was. Perhaps someday.

* * *

The Baroness recalls her after a year for a personal review. She is evaluated as competent, and removed from her position in Wycome to be assigned to special projects.

The timing is fortunate. Jagari is getting married.

His wife is not one of the Itradi daughters, as she would have expected. He had met Velia Lakadi while working at the bank, and had assisted her on untangling the mess of accounts and debts left behind in the wake of her family’s assassination. Velia had been determined to properly invest, and they saw much of each other before they ever found themselves in the same place socially. As the last surviving Lakadi, Velia had both the obligation to repopulate her house _and_ the complete ability of choice. Where some families would have had concerns about introducing such magically-powerful blood as that of the Changaris or being attached to the somewhat-unpleasant fortunes of the Montillas, Velia had no one to offend but plenty of status to gain. Business investments in Rivain have long been the most trusted and stable of investments for Antivan merchants, and both the Changaris and the Montillas are well-respected there.

Josephine meets Velia for the first time a week before the wedding. She likes her. Jagari’s bride-to-be is sociable, educated, firm and confident in her determinations, and has an air of steadfastness that Josephine finds appealing. She thinks that the two of them will settle easily together, and create an enduring marriage.

She does confess to Jagari, when he spends the day before his wedding in the customary confines of the presence of a chosen family member, of her newfound quiet dreams of romance. She can hope for something strong and steady as Jagari and Velia seem to have found, but – what of sweetness? Attentiveness? Surprise displays of love?

Jagari laughs a bit and says that he and Velia have had their share of those, but that every relationship is different. If that sort of romance is what she wants, he asserts, he is confident that she will find it.

Their wedding is beautiful. The both of them look to be supremely satisfied, and _Hita_ Armida blesses their marriage in the traditional Rivaini way once the Chantry service is over. Josephine’s only regret is that she must go back to work immediately, rather than helping Jagari move into the Lakadi estate.

For the next year the Baronessa sends around Thedas to assist in treaty negotiations, provide support to different embassies for special occasions, and reinforce failing or flagging diplomatic endeavors.

Josephine sees the rest of the Free Marches and gains plenty of experience handling their eternal divisive messes. She spends four months in the Anderfels at the King’s Court, sorting out trade deals and soothing tempers. She returns to Minrathous and stays a few more weeks, then settles into Kont-aar for two months to talk trade and renew agreements with the Qunari there. She stays with her cousin Kangera the Seer, and attends the Allsmet with her in Dairsmuid, where she sees her _Hita_ Armida and attends intimate gatherings with the Queen.

Through it all, Guinevere writes. She has the finest and most elegant calligraphy Josephine has ever seen, and the letters are things of beauty as well as welcome missives from a dear friend. Their romantic relationship, such as it was, had ended gently and without comment when Josephine was reassigned. They miss each other’s company but feel no lack for the change otherwise.

While trying to fulfill orders to travel to Cumberland, Josephine becomes stuck in Llomerryn for a week. She finds it interesting but overall unpleasant. Everything about the place is borderline-legal, from the sometimes-pirates of the Felicissima Armada on shore leave to the enclave of Dalish that is absolutely not an Alienage, and using the word will earn you a stabbing. Josephine never exactly sees violence, but it is a constant threat. In her younger years – and isn’t that a joke, she is only twenty – she would have found this place exciting. Now, she is glad to leave.

In Cumberland she deals with the Duke and the College of Enchanters. Caldera Lanos is away on Crow business, and that is how Josephine finds herself the temporary Ambassador to Nevarra for over three months. She does not notice for a few weeks, as she is busy in Cumberland and the embassy is in Antiva City. But one day the two Senior Nuncios arrive, deferentially addressing her as _‘Nuncio Montilla’_ – and that is how Josephine learns that the Baronessa left orders to answer to _her_ when the Ambassador was called away by his other employment.

Caldera Lanos congratulates her on a job well done when he returns. He offers her a permanent position in Nevarra City as a Senior Nuncio.

Josephine can think of little else she wants less than to work for a Crow. As she demurs, he smiles and there is a sharp bite of fear that she is offending him, that House Lanos is working against House Escipo and she will become a casualty of intra-Crow status killings.

But he only flourishes an envelope at her from the Baronessa.

“Minister Gioconda did assure me you are a professional, Nuncio Montilla,” he says. “I suppose I should not be disappointed, nor surprised.”

Her new orders send her to Orlais. There has been a fiasco at the Winter Palace, and the Baronessa has recalled all the staff but for the local hires and the Ambassador himself. She is to go directly to Halamshiral, report to Ambassador Iceda, and be presented to the Empress.

She is also now a Senior Nuncio. Most take much longer to achieve this, and Josephine suspects that the Baronessa has been sending her across Thedas because it keeps her away from those would be jealous of her rapid ascension and send Crows, were she more conveniently placed.

* * *

The Winter Palace glitters. Josephine had not had the opportunity to attend the Empress’s Court here when she had been at the University, but as the second-highest ranked Ambassador from Orlais’s most important and vital trading partner, she is automatically on almost every party list. The first week is a rush through dressmakers and cobblers and specialty clothiers so that she will be properly adorned and fashioned for moving in the highest echelons of Orlesian society, plus a crash review of everyone important.

The winter season never really quiets, but there is only so long that any one person or group can keep up their energy before there simply must be a break to rest. In the lull, Josephine reunites with her Uncle Edouard, who is so incredibly proud of her that he about bursts with it. Partway through their shared dinner – which is thankfully a private affair – she starts crying. Her uncle comforts her, and Josephine realizes that he has acted as more of a father to her than Yves Montilyet has, despite the little time she has spent with him.

She also meets her uncle by true relation, Julien de Serrault. He is Marquis of Serrault, about a decade older than her, and a scholar. They spend some pleasant mornings and afternoons together, conversing on various topics. The de Serraults are still a disgraced family in Orlais, so he does not stay in Halamshiral for long, but Josephine now has yet another person on her correspondent list.

Guinevere appears at her door three days before Satinalia. It is a surprise, and they hug and exclaim and exchange their latest news before Guinevere reveals that she has returned to Orlais solely because that is where Josephine is. Her brother and his wife have slipped far enough into debt that she does not want to live in their household any longer; but she also has little desire to return to her parents’ country manor.

“I thought I might stay with you?” she asks. “I will not if it will be trouble, but I can try to make myself useful, Josephine.”

Local staff is an essential part of any Antivan embassy. There has just been a major overhaul and the other Nuncios the Baronessa is no doubt sending have yet to arrive. Josephine has seniority by default and is already handling most things for the Ambassador – Eladro Icedi is an old man, and needs the help.

She hires Guinevere as her secretary. She will put her friend’s outstanding calligraphy to good use.

* * *

The other Nuncios are long settled in, and the Court has returned to Val Royeaux, when Ambassador Icedi announces his retirement.

Josephine is not entirely surprised.

“And who will be replacing you, Lord Icedi?” she asks politely at the end of the announcement.

He gives her a look of surprise.

“You will be, Lady Montilla.”

This cannot be correct. She is named as a Senior Nuncio, yes – but all the other Nuncios are older than her, with more years of experience, even the Junior ones. Surely one of them-

But no. Baronessa Gioconda has sent a livery collar of gold and sapphires sized for her. There are official funds set aside to make the appropriate gold-and-blue additions to her wardrobe. There are letters of credence with her name listed to be presented to Empress Celene.

Josephine Montilyet is the new Ambassador to Orlais. It is 9:34 Dragon, and she is twenty-one years old.

* * *

As the Ambassador from Antiva, Josephine is invited to every official Court function and meets everyone of note who passes by or through Val Royeaux. It is a large job, an important job, and Josephine knows that the Orlesians think her too young to do well at it. She cannot bring herself to disagree, some days; but she knows what she can do and how well she has done and the heights she feels she can aspire to. She will represent Antiva and her family with honor.

Divine Beatrix III dies within her first year. Josephine attends the funeral in her official capacity, and is at the coronation of Divine Justinia V.

Naturally, what follows is a round of parties. As Ambassador, Josephine is obligated to have one. It is the first major social event she plans under her own authority, and she spends late nights making certain the details are perfect, from the guest list to the catering to the decorations to the music. She must be exact. She must be prepared for the Game. She must be _perfect._

The party is average, and Josephine is relieved, if a touch bored. She had not expected her party to be anywhere near the focal point of the events celebrating the coronation, so this is acceptable.

It is entirely unexpected when the new Left Hand arrives.

She is not announced at the door. She simply appears, wine glass in hand, at Josephine’s side as she leaves a conversation with a mid-ranking Comtesse.

“They say that you are too young for your job, Ambassador,” the Left Hand says from just behind her. She is close enough that her breath ghosts warmly over the back of Josephine’s neck.

Josephine does not startle or jump. She is Antivan, and her brother is a Crow, and she has survived the Magisters of Minrathous. Her heart might race suddenly with fear and surprise, but she will show nothing but her smile and her curtsey.

“Is it not preferable, Left Hand, to have an Ambassador with the vigor of youth to fully experience the pleasures of Orlais, and the time to fully learn and appreciate the workings of the Game?”

The woman smiles slightly at her, eyes twinkling.

“I did not say that _I_ said so, Ambassador. I have seen the young do great things – you are only a year older than the Hero of Ferelden was when he slew the Archdemon. I anticipate following your career with enthusiasm.”

Josephine keeps her engaged in small talk, because why would she not? This is the Left Hand of the Divine, at _her_ party! The social cachet of being seen conversing amicably with this woman is large, and only increases the longer she stayes. Josephine keeps the drinks and platters coming as smoothly as she can, trying to pin her down.

“I do believe that you are the most interesting person in this entire room, Ambassador,” the Left Hand says some time later. She is flushed, and seems loose from drink, but Josephine knows this woman is a Bard. She could very well be pretending. “Why don’t we go find a _real_ party?”

By the morning, she has the suspicion that _she_  hasbeen played, a little – she’d had to continue drinking to keep up the flow of wine, after all, and it seems likely that she had become slightly more tipsy than she’d intended to. Abandoning her own party! 

But by the morning they are Josephine and Leliana, not Ambassador and Left Hand; so everything is all right.

* * *

They know each other for all a month before Kirkwall collapses under the dual assault of Qunari and Knight-Commander Meredith. Josephine finds herself better informed than most, since Leliana writes her from Kirkwall. She does not exactly know what to think of this – they have known each other for so little time. But Leliana was very attached, and Josephine could tell that she liked that she’d found someone who’d look her in the eye when they spoke and would laugh and not worry about her being Left Hand, so she doesn’t worry overmuch.

Satinalia is coming up, anyway. She has to plan for that.

Her father sends her a letter asking her to come home for the holiday. He says he is proud of her for becoming Ambassador, but she refuses. She has duties here. And Val Royeaux is far away from Lauro.

That is all the news she gets from Antiva for three months, until after the new year. She receives two letters on 3rd Guardian. One is from Antonu. The other is an official missive.

She is pleasantly surprised to hear from Antonu, and opens that one first. The feeling lasts until she begins to read it.

Lauro has been killed. The Crows have collapsed under the assault of the Hero of Ferelden, who personally killed Claudio Valisti, leaving only one child of King Fulgendo alive. Antonu _met_ the Hero of Ferelden, who came to Rialto – when had he moved to Rialto – after leaving Antiva City because there were _darkspawn_ in the _family villa_ there, discovered by an ex-Crow Rosso Noche had captured with Lauro’s help.

Josephine had heard a little of Rosso Noche in Wycome, though not much. She has no idea how Antonu fell in with them, and even less of why Lauro would associate with them.

The ex-Crow had been living in the _same house_ as him, and he had met the Hero of Ferelden because the ex-Crow was his fiancé and he’d come to bring him home and he had _not_ been happy to learn that Rosso Noche had been treating him with anything less than the utmost respect.

Antonu has _offended the Hero of Ferelden._ He is a friend of Leliana’s. He is also Arl of Amaranthine and controls the port of Amaranthine city, which is a _very key_ stop in international trade and they are a _merchant family_ and Josephine is making her living as a _diplomat_ and this is one of the key personages in Fereldan politics and this is a _disaster._

The facts that Grand Cleric Itzar has declared a schism with the Chantry warrants only a post-script, in her brother’s mind.

Josephine lets herself indulge, and goes to lie down for a little bit and stare at the ceiling.

The official missive, when she gets to it, is orders from Prince-Regent Estefan Fulgendez, by his _own hand,_ to return to Antiva City with all haste.

Preparations for that journey are almost complete when Josephine receives another letter. This one is from Jagari.

It is not news of Velia’s pregnancy or the doings of the Itradi bank or the successes of their mercantile and property investments.

The Circle at Dairsmuid has been Annulled by Templars and Seekers traveling to investigate the claims Grand Cleric Itzar made of a miracle from the Maker in the Circle at Antiva City.

Her _Hita_ Armida is dead. She has been slaughtered for nothing more than being Rivaini, for being a Changari mage, for proudly being of the line of the Seers of Kont-aar.

* * *

Sailing from Val Royeaux to Antiva City passes Ferelden, and it is no hardship – and a necessity, besides – to stop in Denerim.

She goes to see her friend first. She knows from Leliana’s letters that she has restationed in Denerim for the time being, and it would be rude not to stop in briefly to see her. Josephine wants to, besides. It _has_ been three months.

Leliana tries to apologize for Dairsmuid. She feels responsible – she is the one who selected the Templars and Seekers to send Antiva in the first place, on the Divine’s orders. Josephine does not blame her for what happened; but she does not let Leliana speak further of it.

There is another reason she has come besides seeing her, after all. Leliana is friends with the Hero of Ferelden, and Josephine absolutely must apologize to him in person.

She has not arrived at an opportune time. One of the noble families has been killed, in a shocking deviation from the normal course of Fereldan politics, and the funeral is in the morning. Josephine can take no more time than she absolutely must in this city, so Leliana agrees to introduce them before she and he must go to the service.

“I’d rather hear it from your brother,” the Hero tells her, before she even starts to apologize. “But if you came all the way here, I’ll hear you out. It’s just I’m supposed to be going to a funeral very soon, so maybe-?”

His fiancé steps in to solve the problem. Zevran Revasina had known who she was immediately upon seeing her, calling her _‘Domsignora’_ and kissing her hand. He seemed a courtier through-and-through, entirely at odds with what she had seen of Lauro. He reminds her somewhat of Nuncio Lanos – though Caldera Lanos had never managed to compliment or act affable without an undercurrent of threat.

Instead of speaking with the Arl, it is Master Revasina who takes her off for apologies and conversations. It is an unexpected event, and Josephine walks further into the estate with him trying not to betray her racing heart. He seems congenial, and Leliana treats him as a friend, but he is still a trained Crow. Better than any others she has met, if the news she has of Antiva is true. Both Antonu and Lauro have wronged him, and now she is alone with him in his own house.

Josephine is certain that she will never see the killing blow coming.

He sits her down in a sunny room. He makes their hot chocolate on the small table between them. He hands her cup to her and she sips it, ignoring the way her stomach twists. She saw him make it. It is not poisoned – not unless the poison was already in the ingredients-

“I owe _you_ an apology,” he says. “After a fashion. I do not regret killing your brother, but I am sorry for any pain it has caused you.”

Josephine chokes on her drink. Antonu sent her a letter, he cannot be dead – but you could send a dead man’s letters, and of course you could kill someone after they had already handled their mail-

“Your brother was very upset about it,” he continues. “Though I never saw Lauro be kind to him. Still, I do not know everything; and you can still love those who hurt you.”

Oh. _Lauro._

She composes herself.

“The world is better off without him in it,” she says. It is the truth. She can return home, now. She can see her brothers and sister and cousin without fear. She will not become a piece of Crow politics.

“It is,” Master Revasina agrees.

He is a Crow; and Lauro was a Crow. Josephine wonders how bad Lauro must have been, for another to agree so simply. Or perhaps it is more a testament to the character of the man sitting across from her. There has not been a Crow hero before, and she has seen no one act scared of him.

Of course, this is also Ferelden. They do not know these things.

They talk of pleasanter topics for a time, until she must leave. Master Revasina offers to escort her to the docks, and she cannot think of a polite way to refuse.

It takes until Denerim has fallen out of sight behind the ship for her to really believe she has escaped unscathed.

* * *

 Prince-Regent Estefan is a hard man. He sits on his throne in the palace, a step below his father on the dais, and the contrast is striking. King Fulgendo is a fading man, aged beyond his years. He lost his parents, his Queen, and twelve children to the Crows – one of them on his own orders, after Prince Natale had usurped the throne. It has drained him. He sits on his throne and he is a pale shadow of a King. There is no strength there. This is the legacy of the Campanas.

But the Prince-Regent sits tall. He has his own years etched into his face, but they are granite angles. He has also lost all but one of his children to the Crows, and is who he is because of it. There is a look in his eyes that invites no mercy.

Josephine had to pass strung-up Crows on her way here. They were hanging in the harbor in the places usually reserved for captured pirates, and on scaffolds in the plazas. This is a very different Antiva than the one she left.

Her father is there in the throne room with her. It is unexpected. Their family has not been a name at Court since they were banished from Orlais – even Jagari’s employment and marriage had not earned them space. She has thought, at times, that the Baronessa’s favor for her could change that. In a decade, perhaps. Maybe two. She would be elsewhere on diplomatic business, after all, unable to directly influence those with power in the City.

The Prince-Regent speaks.

Her father had tried to play all the sides in this conflict Josephine had not known was brewing – he had Lauro in the Crows, Antonu in with the original Rosso Noche faction, had tried to marry Iveta off into the newer Rosso Noche faction, and had personally acted as though he were doing none of this and supported the status quo.

It is not a crime to play sides. It is politics. It is something that Josephine has seen many times, and has done herself. It is how things work.

But her father is not a good player, in this game. And the Prince-Regent is a hard man.

Yves Montilyet is not executed. He is not even exiled, or put under bond and oath.

The Prince-Regent is a hard man, with little mercy, and far more practical experience in these matters. He invokes a royal right that has not been exercised since before the Fourth Blight.

Yves Montilyet is stripped of the leadership of his house. His name is to be taken from the land deeds. All contracts and agreements with him are voided. His custodianship of the Montilla accounts is removed. The only thing he is left with are his personal debts. His name is worthless – he is legally barred from making contracts in Antiva, or with any other Antivan. He has no honor, and the entire country will know it.

The Prince-Regent looks at her, and Josephine is certain that she is about to be stripped of her job and her family will be truly ruined.

They are not. He has enough mercy not to punish children for their father’s failures. The land deeds, the contracts, and the accounts are redone in her name. _She_ is head of the family, now.

Josephine is certain that the only reason this is such is because Baronessa Gioconda likes her. She is grateful to leave the palace with her position, and at least some of the Montilla reputation, still intact.

* * *

She is not quite so grateful to be the head of her family. Her position as Ambassador is far away from Antiva, but now she has to manage accounts and economic activity – and her siblings. Antonu is twenty and has been living with elf revolutionaries in Rialto for three years. Iveta is nineteen and insists on being called _‘Yvette’_ – she inherited Madame Champre and wants Orlesian everything. Raphael is eighteen, still as quiet as ever, but their father had done enough right that he has been working with the ships and the family businesses.

Josephine reviews every single one of her family’s assets. The situation is more appalling than she had ever suspected. She has known for most of her life that the Montilla fortune has been slowly but steadily shrinking since the Orlesian branch of the family had been exiled.

The family had barely been breaking even before she had been sent to the University of Orlais. Since then, their margins have been negative, and increasing every year. The debt accrued over the last year is triple the amount of debt accrued from the year before that.

Josephine almost cries, looking at the financial spreads. She sees why her father tried to marry Antonu and Yvette off – they needed the dowry money a spouse of Antonu’s could bring, and if Yvette married properly they could have the partnership and support of another merchant house.

But Yves Montilyet hadn’t managed to do that. He had made poor choices for his children – and the family wouldn’t have _been_ in this position in the first place if he had not been spending money they did not have trying to buy favor with different factions.

From the progress of papers and a smattering of notes, Josephine determines that he had tried to pair Antonu with a succession of different women, and that her brother had run away to Rialto when their father had started trying to force through a marriage contract. Yves Montilyet had been trying to marry Yvette to the leader of the newer faction of Rosso Noche. Ezecil Romao is an amateur scholar and author. Josephine has to ask Raheer Maelni about the politics, and thinks that her father did not know the group as well as he thought. Romao may have been the leader in name, but it is Grand Cleric Itzar who has truly taken charge. She is leading the movement against the Crows along with the Prince-Regent, and publicly supports him as _‘the strong ruler Antiva has long been needing’_.

The chosen enemies of Rosso Noche were the Crows, the weak monarchy, the Orlesian Chantry, and the merchant princes. The Grand Cleric has broken with the Divine, the Crows are being exterminated, and the Prince-Regent shows no signs of letting others dictate his actions.

Josephine does not want to be in Antiva when the crown and the Chantry turn on the most powerful families. It sounds like chaos, and she does not know how the country will survive. Perhaps it will be a long campaign, done more with politics and popular appeal than street violence. Or perhaps it will be swift, private carnage – these are the families who have always relied on the Crows, and they are gone now. The Prince-Regent can command the palace guards, who are elite out of necessity; and the Grand Cleric has mages and Templars. If it is a fast strike, and the Prince-Regent moves while the country is still bloodthirsty for Crows, he may be able to dispose of them and seize their assets with little fuss.

Still, Josephine would prefer to be far away from it. Better to stay quiet, and have the family remain unassociated with the downfall of anyone’s relatives. The Prince-Regent is already against her father, and with the meddling he has been doing, Josephine thinks it likely that the Grand Cleric would also not mind seeing him – and perhaps all the Montillas – gone.

* * *

She looks over the accounts again, calls in Jagari to analyze the familial debts with her, and reviews the deeds and contracts.

The value of coin is weighed against the possibility of keeping her family safer, and she chooses the lives of her siblings. There is no other choice.

Josephine sells off farms in the country she has never seen. She finds buyers for the family shares in most of their apartment rent investments. Jagari generously loans her enough money, without expectation of quick repayment or accruing interest, for her to fix the damage to the Rialto townhouse and clean up the property. It is bought for a good price.

She sells back parcels of land in Rivain the Montillas had acquired from the Changari through frequent marriages into the family to distant relatives. They are mostly acres of citrus orchards and rice paddies. She holds on to most of the spice farms, the cacao farm, two of the tea tree farms, and all of the sugar cane land. The products of those properties sell for prices too high to exchange them for quick money to pay off the highest-interest debts. The family profits will take a hit from losing the staple-food properties, but it cannot be helped.

By the time she has finished, the Montilla family retains only the country villa with it’s orchards, the luxury product farms and an ancestral estate in Rivain, the highest-value rent shares in Antiva City apartments, and the vast Antiva City estate. Almost all of their owned property is gone, as are the investments.

But she can pay off the debts with the worst interest rates, pay their fleet, and move most of her family out of Antiva.

Josephine leave the day-to-day administration of the family assets Jagari. Captain Sajita and the steward of the country estate will report to him. Raphael will stay in Antiva to continue his financial and mercantile education under their cousin. Anything that needs official approval will move up the chain to Jagari, who will send it to her.

The delay on sending important papers back and forth between Orlais and Antiva is unavoidable, for now. Josephine had intended for the Ambassador position to be her career – but with the Prince-Regent and her father’s actions, her position is suddenly uncertain. She will make the best use of it that she can while she has it. Her family needs to be reestablished in Orlais, and if he does remove her from her position, she will hopefully have had enough time in it to have set up shop in Val Royeaux.

The only part about returning to Orlais that is easy is Yvette. She is thrilled to be going. Josephine hopes that the Game does not take her in and throw her back out, disillusioned about the glamor of it. She has survived, but Yvette seems to have a flighty sort of romantic soul. She wants a comfortable life, and art, and romance, and enough excitement to be enjoyable. Josephine warns her off Bards, anyhow.

Yves Montilyet does not want to go. Josephine does not care. He can return to Antiva if he wishes, to wallow and fester in a country where no one will treat with him and he must rely on _her_ beneficence if he is to have any designated income – but _only_ after he goes to Serrault to grovel to her mother. He drove her away. Josephine has not seen her mother since she was very small and has no particular desire to. Lilie de Serrault abandoned her family in Antiva, but Josephine has sympathy. Her mother was married young to a man she did not know in a foreign country. She had her children young, and her husband took one of them and destroyed him. He _will_ apologize.

Perhaps, she suggests to him, the de Serraults will find enough mercy – or _pity_ – to take him in. Or Uncle Edouard. Or one of his other Orlesian friends. He is not barred from business activities there.

Josephine hopes one of them does – well, not Uncle Edouard. But if there is some rich noble providing for Yves Montilyet in Orlais, it takes him out of her hands, off of the family properties, and far away from Antiva City; where he will almost certainly make more trouble for the Montillas.

Antonu is in love with an elf revolutionary in Rialto and refuses to leave him. Josephine refuses to leave her brother in Antiva unsupervised, but she also does not wish to hurt him. She invites Zelda Amajuan to the estate in Antiva City.

He is six years older than Antonu, and a member of the sort of young intellectual groups Josephine knows from Wycome. She had not been aware that the Royal University of Antiva had groups of radical students, but given the political climate, she is less surprised than she could have been. When she cross-checks Zelda’s stories with Raheer Maelni, later, he confirms that the Royal University is indeed a hotbed of radical liberal intellectuals. They have been filtering into the Secretariat and the local Chantries for years.

She is unsurprised to learn that Raheer himself was one of the first of those students.

Zelda is well-read, well-spoken. He has little practical experience in the type of politics that Josephine knows, but she recognizes the intellectual fire. It has been some time since she has been able to indulge hers, but she knows it still waits, banked, ready for her when she has time to return to it. It does not take much encouragement for him to begin talking about Rosso Noche, Rialto, the Royal University, the Organized Apostates, and the subset of radical students deeply engaged in the topic of elf rights.

She finds she does not necessarily disagree with him on most of his points. She also sees that Antonu will not be parted from him, and that he is in this as deeply as Zelda is.

If Antonu is going to survive, he must learn politics. If he is going to happy, he will have Zelda. If _Zelda_ is going to survive, he _very much_ needs to learn politics. And have connections. Orlais will not be the safest place for him – she is not unaware of how the Chevaliers act – but if she has him on her staff, he will have all the protection she can give him.

* * *

Despite her worries, Yvette does not get swept up into the world of Bards. Josephine is relieved – she arranges for her sister to attend the University of Orlais, and Yvette happily settles in. She takes art classes. It seems unlikely that she will become a master painter, or even make a living off of it, but Josephine proudly hangs her canvases in the private areas of her apartments. Her sister gains friends and invitations to parties. Josephine keeps an eye on her. It is partially for Yvette’s safety, partially for her own peace of mind, and partially to see if any mutual interest develops between her sister and any of the single noble Orlesians. She thinks her sister would be happy to marry into Orlais, and it would be a very good foundation for the family to expand back into their old trade grounds.

Yves Montilyet is, in fact, accepted into the household of an old business partner. That noble lives in Val Chevin, and she has no idea why he would do such a thing. But he is not important enough to be invited to Court or to be considered as a guest by anyone else in high society, so Josephine never sees him.

It is Antonu who falls into the company of Bards. Very well, _some of them_ may be simple musicians. But _enough_ of them are Bards; and all of them are the sort to hang about in less-respectable neighborhoods, indulging vices in the name of Art or playing the shadier parts of the Game.

It is not respectable. It is not the politics she wanted him to learn. It is not _safe._

But Orlais is not safe, the Game and business can become unsafe, and Antiva may not have Crows now but that does not mean there is no danger. At least as long as he is in Val Royeaux, she can help. Josephine keeps an eye on him. For his own safety. It also means that she can – with _care_ – cultivate some of the people he meets as contacts for her own work. If they think that Antonu is deliberately fishing for connections for his sister the Ambassador, so much the better. It means that they have a way to contact her without being seen about the embassy, or her having to make secretive assignations in dark streets.

Leliana, when she returns to Val Royeaux, seems fondly amused by her efforts. Josephine is well aware that she pales in comparison next to the Divine’s spymaster, but her own contacts suit her needs. She can call upon nobles, diplomats, merchants, and academics across Thedas – almost all of them legitimate and above-board. Most are happy to work with her. Very few know of her short time as a Bard, and even they did, Josephine has not been quiet about her distaste for physical violence. She has a deserved reputation as a peacekeeper, as a negotiator, as someone who does not consider assassins or hired thugs the solution to a problem. Enough people take this to mean that she is safe. Not exactly weak – they know that she accomplishes most of what she sets out to do – but there is something inherently comforting about dealing with someone you know will not plot your death.

It puts everyone in a better mood, and happier people are more likely to be open to suggestions and agree to compromises.

But she is not above manipulation. She has wielded threats against people often enough – of unrenewed contracts, of disgrace, of scandal, of difficult times ahead because they would not cooperate. On occasion, she has even stooped to mentioning duels. Never over an insult to or disagreement with _her,_ oh no. But sometimes people will not listen to words, even their own, and it is not hard to hope aloud that a thoughtless comment will not reach the ears of those it is disdaining. She is only expressing concern for their wellbeing, of course. She eschews violence, and would rather see it avoided.

Josephine wonders if that reputation would hold if they knew who she writes. Leliana had passed on a polite request for correspondence upon her return from Ferelden. Josephine had not thought that Master Revasina had taken so well to her – perhaps he had not, and the offer is simply to keep up politics. He is High Lord of Amaranthine now, after all; and a personal friend of the Queen of Ferelden. She also knows, from Leliana, that the embassy in Denerim is entirely cowed by him. Josephine is in Orlais, a safe distance from him, but still an Antivan diplomat.

It is a surprisingly kind and interesting correspondence.

* * *

Things do not fall apart as she expects.

She knows that her second secretary is involved in _something_ with the local elves, and Josephine will not look to closely. It will only become her concern if – _when_ – Zelda becomes actively in danger.

She expects this to be the next problem. There are things said about Empress Celene and elves, after all.

But it is the Chantry instead.

It is not a secret that things have been going poorly in the last years. 9:35 saw the collapse of Kirkwall, the Antivan Schism, the Annulment of Dairsmuid, and Rivain’s subsequent self-excommunication from Andrasteanism. The Circles at Jainen and Hasmal revolted in 9:36. The Divine’s attempt to re-instate the Circle at Starkhaven failed in 9:37, and was followed up by the revolts of the Circles at Ostwick, Arleans, and Hercinia. The year had closed with the First Enchanter and Senior Enchanters of the Circle at Nevarra City being killed.

Josephine does not quite believe that they had become abominations, as the Knight-Commander had reported. The Templars and the Seekers had said the same of the Circle at Dairsmuid, and it was untrue then. She thinks it more likely that the Knight-Commander in Nevarra City had feared the mages’ discontent.

9:38 had been a quieter time – the Divine had called the College of Magi to meet in Cumberland, and they had stayed there for most of the year. Justinia V had also made some attempts at revising the regulations of the White Spire, the Circle at Val Royeaux. Josephine does not know the details, only that there was much resistance, and that the attempts failed. That was all Leliana would say on the matter.

The current year has been tumultuous. One of the Senior Enchanters of the White Spire attempted to assassinate the Divine. Josephine sympathizes with the fear, but cannot approve of the violence. The Seekers had been put in control of the Spire, and now there is a Conclave of First Enchanters being held there. It is unusual – Josephine has only ever heard of the collective College of Magi being called, and only in Cumberland. It has been a matter of discussion in Val Royeaux for some time. The Orlesians fear and loathe magic, and she has had to sit through many, many conversations with those who are not quiet about their opinions.

Josephine does not notice for the first few hours – most people in Val Royeaux do not.

But then there is commotion throughout the city. The White Spire is not a small place, and when it spills into the streets, it overruns them. There is magic flying and there are swords and arrows and Josephine orders everyone in the embassy to stay in their offices. She locks all the doors but one, and sends Zelda out into the streets.

Her _Hita_ Armida was executed for nothing in Dairsmuid. Leliana has told her what she has discovered of the Gallows in Kirkwall. Josephine will save who she can. There is not enough room for everyone running, and if they are discovered hiding mages, things will go poorly. She is friends with the Left Hand and knows Leliana’s unorthodox opinions on the Circles, but this is Val Royeaux and there is Chantry law to consider.

Zelda comes and goes throughout the afternoon, returning each time with a handful of mages. Many of them are elven. Josephine assumes they were originally hidden by Zelda’s associates she does not acknowledge, and that there are other places throughout Val Royeaux hiding those who are being hunted.

She ensconces the mages in the basement and writes directly to Rialto and Amaranthine. Zelda’s father is friends with the leader of the Organized Apostates of Antiva, who work openly with the schismatic Antivan Chantry without the confines of Circles or constant Templar watch. The mages of the Wardens of Ferelden are led by a famously-outspoken and uncowed Libertarian. The answer to one or both of her letters will let her know how best to move her guests safely out of Orlais.

* * *

Oscar Belo, the leader of the Organized Apostates of Antiva, writes back to say that they will find room for anyone who wants to come.

Her letter to Amaranthine is answered in person. She is worrying over the sudden and conspicuous absence of Antonu and Zelda in the wake the Empress Celene making a firestorm of Halamshiral’s Alienage when Guinevere tells her she has unexpected guests. Lord-Captain Alistair Mac Maric and Mage-Captain Anders of the Grey Wardens of Ferelden are awaiting her in the Lesser State Room. So is High Lord Revasina.

 The Wardens are conspicuous in their formal armor. The immaculately-polished silverite gleams. The royal blue of the cloth components practically glows. Leather is oiled to a shine. The High Lord is wearing a fortune in amaranth dye and gold jewelry. There is no possible way that their presence here will go unremarked upon by the society of Val Royeaux.

“We are here officially to see Leliana,” Lord Revasina reassures her. “Our presence here is explained quite easily. The Prince-Consort passes on his greetings and well-wishes to his favorite cousin.”

“That is very kind of him,” Josephine says automatically. She had been invited to the wedding of Rosaire Desroschers and Queen Anora Mac Tir of Ferelden, but had been unable to attend. Her imperative at the time had been getting her family’s affairs in order after her father’s disgrace. “Why should you need to see Leliana?”

“We want to know if the Grand Enchanter is alive,” Lord-Captain Mac Maric says at the same that Mage-Captain Anders demands: “Did the College _really_ declare independence?”

“The Wardens had to step in at Kinloch Hold and Jainen, you see,” Lord Revasina explains. “If the College of Magi separated from the Chantry, then the Templars had no authority there. If the College did not – the Templars did not ask, nor wait for, approval for Annulments. The Queen wishes for clarification on the matter. Also we have found a handful of Templars who were taking Tainted lyrium.”

Josephine cannot imagine what one might wish to mix with lyrium. Surely that would devalue it?

“Tainted with what?”

“That is for Leliana, my Lady Montilyet,” he says apologetically. “But it is extremely worrisome. Shall we discuss your guests?”

Josephine is aware that there are mages who escape the Circles, and that there are people who help them. She had _not_ been aware that anyone outside of Antiva had organized that help. She learns that there is a Mage Underground in the Free Marches. A Mages’ Collective in Ferelden. Both are in contact with the Organized Apostates.

She also learns that Amaranthine is a hub for mage-smuggling. This does not surprise her. The Hero of Ferelden intervened in the Annulment of Kinloch Hold during the Blight and publicly shouted down the former Grand Cleric of Ferelden for trying to assign Templars to Warden mages. The Dalish sit in Ferelden’s southern reaches, on land granted by the Queen. Zelda and Antonu have an illicit printing press they think she doesn’t know about, and for the past two years they have been churning out extremely illegal translations of _On the Rights of Mages_. The manifesto carries no name, but there had been an old Antivan copy that Rosso Noche had printed in the estate in Antiva City. Josephine had found it when moving the family. It had had the Mage-Captain’s name on it.

Her guests have more options than she’d thought. Lord Revasina lays them out: they can stay in place and wait for the Divine’s decision on how to handle the situation. The elves and the elf-blooded have an open invitation from the Dalish. The Wardens will take any who wish to join their order. They are also an active part of the international mage-smuggling operation, and will help those who wish to run to Antiva or Rivain with their journey. Alternatively, they have a place for those mages who fear to venture into larger society to lay low.

Most of the mages wish to leave. The Wardens get them out of the city a few at a time. Josephine promises to pass on her new knowledge to any other mages on the run she may meet.

* * *

Zelda and Antonu arrive at the embassy in the middle of the night three weeks later. They are battered. There is blood on their clothes and they smell. Antonu is covered in scrapes and his hands are a mess. It is clear that someone held Zelda down and took a knife to his hair – it is uneven, cut too close to the scalp. The blade left a cut across the top of his head and his left ear has been notched.

There are two mages still in the embassy, Martin and Lissandre. Martin heals Zelda, and then Antonu as Josephine evens out her second secretary’s hair.

Things remain unsettled in Val Royeaux. Josephine has not held a social even at the embassy since the White Spire. She has gone to Court, and to the parties of a few nobles she personally likes. Everything else she has been excusing herself from on the basis of diplomatic duties. She is not entirely lying – the Orlesian Chantry is in a crisis while the new Antivan Chantry is in a stable and productive partnership with the crown. Grand Cleric Itzar is keenly interested in the Divine’s actions.

But mostly she is forging the necessary paper trail to convince anyone who asks that her mages are Antivan citizens. Grand Cleric Itzar has rebuffed what overtures Divine Justinia has made so far – there have not been many, with the trouble with the Circles – so there is no established agreement on the legal status of Antivan mages. If Martin or Lissandre are apprehended by the Chantry, that uncertainty may be enough to save them. There is precedent. For all that the Chantry decries mages and magic and Orlais continues to claim the position as protector of the south against the evils of the Imperium, Magisters and other high-ranking Tevene mages are not uncommon visitors to the capital. _They_ always travel freely, without Templar guard, even in the presence of the Empress.

Her staff is very cooperative. Josephine does not think that the Prince-Regent or the Baronessa know that, by replacing the old diplomatic mission with newer members of the Secretariat, they have filled the embassy with the young academic types who lifted Rosso Noche into a position of power. They are at least tolerant of magic. Josephine cannot say it, but part of her patriotic pride is that Antivans are by and large not so unnecessarily concerned about the dangers of magic as many other countries. There are too many with family and business ties to Rivain and the Tevinter Imperium, at least in the cities, for there to be a fear of _all_ magic.

There is more danger from rival merchants, anyhow. And it had been hard to hold onto any fear of _potential_ maleficar when the Crows were immediate and active.

Josephine reopens the embassy for social events just in time for the Lord Seeker to declare the Nevarran Accord null and void.

* * *

The majority of Seekers and Templars are besieging Andoral’s Reach in the west, where the assembled escaped mages from across the south voted their independence from the Chantry the year before. Josephine knows from Leliana that the mages now within Andoral’s Reach are mostly Loyalists. The Isolationists had left the fortress even before the Nevarran Accord had been voided, and the Libertarians and those Aequitarians aligned with them had been forced out as the Lord Seeker’s forces had approached. There is constant news from the countryside of various groups of mages or Templars being spotted, and conflicts when they meet. At first they are mostly in the north along the Nevarran border, but the Voie de Ghislain brings them quickly into the Heartlands. Val Royeaux and the surrounds remain secure with the presence of the Chevaliers and those Templars and Seekers who refuse to acknowledge the voiding of the Nevarran Accord.

Val Chevin cannot say the same, when the Voie de Ghislain meets the Imperial Highway and fleeing mages and pursuing Templars turn north towards Cumberland. Josephine does not hear from her father. She had not been expecting to.

 _Finally,_ Divine Justinia feels she has enough loyal Templars and Seekers, and sends all but a skeleton force out to Andoral’s Reach to answer the pleas of the Loyalist mages for help. The Divine’s relief force breaks the Lord Seeker’s siege on the fortress.

It also breaks what containment of the clash there had been. The Lord Seeker’s forces fracture into small groups just as quickly as the non-Loyalist mages who had still been in Andoral’s Reach do. The Seekers range out, chasing rumors of blood magic and demons. The mages run east, because to the west there are only the Hunterhorns. The Templars follow. They reach the Heartlands weeks ahead of the Divine’s forces, who are moving slowly, burdened by their wounded and the starved and sickly Loyalist mages.

The fields and orchards of Val Foret are overrun. Grand Duke Gaspard de Chalons declares war on Empress Celene, on the basis that he has a better claim and she is a weak ruler, besides. The rumors of _‘elf-lover’_ still haunt her, and it is not hard for the Grand Duke to turn many of those ambivalent to the inheritance dispute against the Empress by pointing to the magical violence spilling into the Dales as proof that she is incompetent and callous to the plight of her people.

Val Royeaux is not exactly a war zone. But almost all of the Chevaliers rally to the Grand Duke’s cause. Divine Justinia loses some of the few Templars and Seekers she has kept in reserve evicting them from the city before there can be a massacre at the Summer Palace. The Divines have always supported the absolute authority of the Imperial throne. Divine Justinia has lost too many battles already. She cannot afford to distance herself from Empress Celene any more than the Empress can afford to distance herself from the Divine. The Empress has loyal nobles and the levees of men they call for an army. The Divine now has only enough fighting power to break a siege on a single fortress. The Empress needs convincing legitimacy to keep her power. The Divine has plenty of legitimacy to share.

By the end of 9:40 Josephine is near her breaking point, only one more disaster away from invoking her authority as Head of Diplomatic Mission and moving the entire embassy back to Antiva. The Chantry is collapsing under the weight of its own mutinied army and Orlais is in civil war. Embassies have been rescinded for lesser troubles. The only thing keeping her is that she fears packing up and returning will be enough justification for the Prince-Regent to feel safe disposing of her. She is already in a very precarious position.

There is her father, yes. The Prince-Regent has proven to be very good at holding grudges. But there are other problems. Her friendship with Leliana, no matter how much useful news she has obtained from it, makes her look somewhat suspect to Grand Cleric Itzar. The Prince-Regent and the Grand Cleric rely on each other to have enough collective power to work against the merchant houses. It does not help her situation that it is know she is interested in expanding the Montilla’s economic influence.

She has also been feeling the pressure ever since High Lord Revasina had visited her. She had not known of the enmity there, and while it is understandable from a personal perspective, it is unconscionable from a diplomatic standpoint. Amaranthine is a vital port of international mercantile activity. Fereldan goods may not be luxury goods, but there is plenty of trade tied up in raw materials. The grain and timber exports alone-

Josephine knows Lord Revasina holds no ill-will towards the Prince-Regent or his family, nor holds their anger against them. She asked him, and she believes him. But the Prince-Regent’s emotions are ruining relations with Ferelden. The embassy in Denerim is still scared of Lord Revasina and everything he represents, but they are also terrified of angering their Prince. They accomplish little. Josephine has been picking up their slack – with Lord Revasina’s help and the quiet approval of the Queen.

If the Prince-Regent finds out, her family will be ruined. She does not think it unlikely that she will be imprisoned or exiled on charges of treason.

Everything becomes worse as they pass into the new year. The bulk of the fighting has moved into the Dales, but the mages and the Templars have reach the Frostbacks and the borders of Ferelden. It is a five-way melee between the Empress’s forces, the Grand Duke’s, the mages, the Templars, and the Fereldans. Celene still holds Val Royeaux, but minor nobles are leaving her faction for Gaspard’s. It is creating unrest in formerly peaceful areas of the Heartlands. In the north, the last uninvolved noble declares for Empress Celene. Duke Bastien de Ghislain’s troops are a welcome addition to her cause, but his neighbors in Churneau have declared for the Grand Duke. The de Montforts, who would have provided him with additional forces, are already committed against the de Chevins. And everywhere, there is sabotage. The rumor is that it is the work of the Empress’s former lady’s maid, Briala. Josephine knows it to be true. Zelda and Antonu are involved in the elven resistance, and she has ceased ignoring that fact.

There is fighting to the north, the east, and the west. The Imperial Highway is impassible. Only the Waking Sea remains open. Orlais has never been much enamored of naval power; and now both factions rely on the sea route to bring in supplies for the armies in the field.

She makes it through the spring of 9:41 before ordering the embassy to begin packing. They will return to Antiva, and she will face whatever the Prince-Regent decides to do with her. She will not endanger her staff any longer.

* * *

Leliana, of course, knows of her plans to leave days before they are ready to set sail. She arrives at the embassy and says: “I thought you were worried about the consequences of returning to Antiva, Josie.”

“I am.”

She is. She does not want to leave any of her family in Orlais, but it is possible they will be safer here. Josephine has given Yvette strict orders to stay within the grounds of the University. No matter who wins the civil war, there are too many children of nobility concentrated there for either Celene or Gaspard to attack it.

Neither Antonu nor Zelda will leave Orlais for Antiva. Antiva has had its revolution. There are things to be done here, now. Josephine does not want to leave them. They are certainly in more danger than Yvette. But Zelda has been in her personal employ, and whatever the Prince-Regent does may come down on him. It is perhaps better to have the known danger than the unknown.

“So stay.”

“I cannot endanger my staff, Leliana. It is unconscionable!”

“What is stopping you from sending your staff home but remaining here?”

There is nothing, really, but for the fact that Josephine feels it would be an admittance of cowardice. There is no integrity, no honor, in avoiding your problems.

“And how would I manage diplomacy all by myself? It is far too large a job for one person!”

“We can hire you a new staff.”

“No,” Josephine refuses. “I am a _diplomat._ There are things that I cannot hand to foreign citizens.”

“And if you were not working for Antiva?”

That is-

Leliana tells her of Divine Justinia’s plans. Of her hopes. The war is moving east, and if they are to manage it – if they are to gain a hold on the situation – they must move with it. The holy site of the Temple of Sacred Ashes is conveniently located, and no one would dare attack it for fear of the Maker’s wrath and the hand of every faithful turned against them.

“We _need_ you, Josephine,” Leliana pleads. “Your reputation is well-known. The mages are already set against us for fear of reprisal, and the Templars claim we have betrayed them. The Divine may make speeches and give sermons, but her skills do not lie at the negotiating table. Maker knows Cassandra would be even worse, and I… _may_ be able to manage any talks, but I am too feared. If _you_ are the one in charge of the proceedings, it will be hard to doubt when we speak of an end to violence.”

This may ruin her career in Antiva; but it is already unsteady. If she were to go home and she is retained in the Secretariat, it is likely she will be sent to another embassy. If she is not, she will be put to managing the foreign ambassadors to the King and Prince-Regent.

It occurs to her that she has had all the power in Orlais. She is uncertain if she could return to serving in a subordinate position, where she must adhere to the tone and tactics of whoever she is placed below.

Such a position would be much less beneficial, as well. These are the wars that are tearing the south apart – Orlais has borne the worst of it, but the main body of the war has reached Ferelden. Western Nevarra has been endangered from the start, and if fighting larger than skirmishes between small groups of mages and Templars comes to the Free Marches, outright war between the city-states would not be far off. If she is merely a Senior Nuncio, what will she be able to do, practically speaking, to stem the violence?

Nothing.

She writes a very deferential letter to the King and the Prince-Regent, explaining that she has rescinded the embassy for the safety of the staff, but has chosen to stay abroad for the time being in hopes that her skills may be of service in halting the wars.

_The sooner it is concluded, the sooner we may conduct business as usual._

It is a particularly Antivan sentiment. Perhaps the Prince-Regent will accept it; perhaps he will not.

Either way, if she succeeds, she will have all the reputation she will ever need.

* * *

Josephine leaves Val Royeaux in the company of Leliana and the Divine herself. All but the most personal members of her staff have returned to Antiva – Guinevere has stayed with her, as have Martin and Lissandre. She cannot guess why, given their company. Perhaps they feared that they would not be accepted in Antiva without her.

Zelda and Antonu are with her as well. She is pleased to have them within sight, but suspects that they have come solely because Briala and the elven revolution do not believe that they will be included in any negotiations. Josephine cannot guarantee it – but for the peace, for her brother and his beloved, and for all those who could not outrun the Chevaliers, she will try.

The journey to Haven is much longer than usual, given the widespread nature of the war. They cannot travel through the Dales to Gherlen’s Pass, and then sail down the length of Lake Calenhad to reach their destination directly. They must take the sea.

They sail to Denerim, with the intent to take the highway south to Redcliffe, and from there to Haven.

When the Queen receives them, these plans are dashed. The capital is empty – the nobility of Ferelden is a fighting nobility, and there is plenty to be had.

The farmlands of the Bannorns are being ravaged for the second time in eleven years – Teyrn Fergus is organizing their defense. In the west, Arl Alfstanna and Arl Teagan struggle to protect their people from the worst of the fighting. The Queen in her capacity as Arlessa of Denerim is reinforcing Arl Bryland in trying to keep the war from spilling over the River Drakon. All are supported by small, roving bands of Wardens with orders to act autonomously in aid of any Fereldans or mages in need – but even they are strained. Their leadership is divided, pulled in too many directions at once.

In Amaranthine, Lord-Captain Mac Maric is engaged trying to break a siege on Soldiers’ Peak, which the Wardens had offered to those mages wishing to stay apart from wider society. Warden-Captain Oghren Kondrat liaises with Kal’Hirol and directs the Knights of the Silver Order to prevent Templar reinforcements from crossing into the Arling and hunt down those who have slipped the border. Mage-Captain Anders sails back and forth between Kinloch Hold and the Circle at Jainen, both held by Wardens and housing yet more mages, managing those who wish to lend their skills and talents to Ferelden in this time of need. The Arl-Commander himself is currently somewhere in the Brecilian Forest, searching for the source of mysterious Templar attacks coming from behind Fereldan lines.

One person they do find at the Fereldan Court is Grand Enchanter Fiona. Josephine misses whatever she says to the Divine, because Leliana corrals her into her conversation with Lord Revasina. It is not so bad a thing – he has vital political information about who best to pressure to alleviate the current situation, and the Warden reports he has access to are necessary for them to continue safely on their journey. But Josephine feels that she would have been better served mediating between the Divine and the Grand Enchanter. She fears there was shouting, and no one informed her.

She does speak with the Grand Enchanter before they leave. The answers are not exactly reassuring. The Isolationists, Aequitarians, and Libertarians all nominally listen to her, but there are plenty of subgroups led by other influential high-ranking mages whom she cannot command, only try to convince. And she is, of course, not in direct contact with those mages still searching for safe harbor and actively fighting the Templars. All she can assure Josephine of is that the mages in Amaranthine, Kinloch Hold, Jainen, and any others who accept the protection of the Queen and the Wardens will come peacefully to any organized negotiations – so long as Fiona herself is satisfied that something may truly be accomplished.

It is determined that the safest route to Haven begins by sailing to Gwaren. Lord Revasina joins them, carrying authorizations from the Queen for the passage rights of her loyal Templars. Josephine does not suspect there is any alternative motive until they arrive and the Arl-Commander meets them in the courtyard of the Teyrn’s Estate. He ignores the rest of them for a good three minutes in favor of holding his husband tight.

Josephine knows from her conversations with Lord Revasina that they have not seen each other for nearly a year. She is content to wait.

He greets Leliana with all the warmth due an old friend when they finally part, but he is _shockingly_ rude to the Divine. He does not bow to her. He does not address her as Most Holy, Your Holiness, or Your Perfection. He does not act the least bit deferential.

Josephine sees Leliana and Lord Revasina share a long-suffering look behind his back as he shows a smidge of politeness by asking if the trip has been pleasant.

She spends the rest of the day giving strict orders to those she can that the Arl-Commander is _not_ to be snubbed or remarked upon in public for either his manners or his heritage, and crafting half a dozen strategies for apologizing to him should one of the Chantry authority figures in the party be undiplomatic. _When_ one of them is undiplomatic.

They leave Gwaren two days later, to allow for rest from the sea voyage and for the Divine to address the faithful of the city. They are far enough south that Josephine must exchange the clothes appropriate for late spring in Val Royeaux for those she normally wears only in winter. It is not quite enough to stave on the chill – particularly in the shadows of the Brecilian Forest’s dense evergreens, maples, alders, and birches.

She expects the Arl-Commander to disappear back into the forest, once they reach it, but he stays with the party. Josephine does not understand why until she turns her head for a moment, and when she looks back at the path in front of them, it is curving the opposite direction.

The Templars go for their swords. The Divine’s guard closes in around her. Josephine clutches at her cloak. Her unease makes her horse fidget.

Lord Revasina leans over and grasps her reins. He seems at ease, but she notices the sharpness in his eyes as he watches his husband.

The entire party has stopped. Those behind begin to murmur – the Templars have been on edge ever since they approached the treeline, and the rest of them know enough to have either previous knowledge of the legends of the forest, or heard the ghost stories from citizens of Gwaren.

At the front of the party, the Arl-Commander’s mount stands unperturbed. Josephine does not know very much about the particulars of horses, but his Amaranthine Charger is clearly a warhorse, and used to his rider. It has borne the Arl-Commander’s tower shield without complaint, and has not shied away from odd noises in the trees or shifting shadows on the path as many of the others have.

“ _Excuse_ you,” the Arl-Commander says, irritated, to empty air.

The path straightens itself as Josephine watches. It remains pointed due west as they continue, unnaturally flat beneath their horses’ hooves as all around them trees stand rooted in uneven, lumpy hills.

Josephine rests uneasily when they camp that night. In the morning, the Templars are red-eyed from lack of sleep, and almost everyone else shows signs of fatigue. The only ones who seem well-rested are the Arl-Commander and Lord Revasina.

Hearing Leliana’s secondhand stories of the Arl-Commander’s life in these trees is much different than seeing him utterly unconcerned about the landscape.

The Arl-Commander continues leading the party, but throughout the rest of their time in the Brecilian Forest, the path never runs unnaturally straight and flat. They become accustomed to navigating slopes and shallow valleys and narrow winding switchbacks with steep drops. Sometimes the trees shift around them, or the landscape abruptly changes after they turn a bend, but the path stays true.

It is a relief to exit the forest.

Again, she expects the Arl-Commander to remain. Again, he does not.

“The fighting is heavy in this area,” Lord Revasina explains when she asks him. “Go too far north, and you will ride into the middle of it. But if you try to stay south, it is almost certain that you will be unable to avoid the Dalish lands. They have been guarding their own, and will find the sighting of a large group of Templars grounds for defense by offense. Negotiating the border would be a delicate balancing act for you at the best of times, and in these circumstances…”

The Dalish are a group Josephine knows little about. She feels it likely that her education under Raheer Maelni taught her more than most, but without diplomatic ties and foreign embassies and nobility, she has had no chance or reason to implement any of it.

It is fortunate that the Arl-Commander continues to travel with them. Often enough, he has Leliana stop the party and he rides on ahead. They only proceed only once he returns. Josephine assumes that he has some knowledge of patrols or trail sign that the rest of them do not, as they are never bothered. They do not even see any other Dalish until the tall arches of the Imperial Highway appear. It is only then that groups of elves on halla-back shadow them, visible enough to make out individual riders but too far away for any details to be seen.

On the crest of a particularly tall hill – more a small mountain, in her opinion – Lord Revasina draws her attention to a cleft between two other peaks and points out the distant mass of Ostagar.

Hallarenis’haminathe, he calls it – _‘the resting place of countless halla’_ , the Third City of the elves. Josephine tries to fix the name and its translation in her mind.

Their watchers fall away as they leave it behind.

* * *

The Arl-Commander finally parts ways with them the morning they leave the hospitality of Arl Mallory and Ashengard Keep. They are now much further south in the Frostbacks than where she spent a spring and summer with the du Lions, and her wardrobe is entirely inadequate. It is merely cool when the sun is at its highest, but cold in the mornings and evenings. They are edging into summer and there is _snow._

On a map, the distance between Ashengard Keep and Haven is not so far. In practice, it is a winding and sometimes dangerous route through the mountains, and takes some time.

Haven itself, once they reach it, is not much. Only the highest-ranking members of their party are given rooms in the Chantry itself. Everyone else is put into pilgrims’ housing, now empty because of the difficulties of travel.

 _Josephine_ gets two rooms. She shares a bedchamber with Guinevere, and Leliana gives up her old office for diplomatic use. Josephine gathers her supplies, locates two smaller tables for use as desks and has them brought in, broadly divides the documents and correspondence she anticipates accumulating in the coming months between Guinevere and Zelda, and sets to work.

It is painfully slow going. She is prepared to handle the crisis in Orlais. Empress Celene is in Val Royeaux, Grand Duke Gaspard is in Verchiel, and if she needs to pass on information to Briala, all she has to do is hand it to Zelda. Arranging a peace, even if a temporary one for the purposes true negotiations, is a destination she can see the path to.

But there is little organization to the other war. Grand Enchanter Fiona remains in Denerim, lobbying for the mage refugees. It seems that it is agreed she speaks for the Libertarians, as the Resolutionist representative of that Fraternity, Adrian, has been missing since the mages’ flight from Andoral’s Reach. So is Rhys, the representative and tentative leader of the Aequitarians. The Loyalists have already returned to concordance with the Chantry, and are easy to speak with. The Isolationists have set locations, but the only answers she receives are from Mage-Captain Anders, who is adamant that he is not and never has been anything but a Libertarian.

And this only holds where there is some measure of stability, of course. The bands of mages in the countryside care more for their own immediate survival than adherence to any of the Fraternities, and it is not as though Josephine can write each one individually. Nor can she address each distinct unit of Templars. She does not even know if the Order has retained cohesion in the wake of the dissolution of the Nevarran Accord. Like Senior Enchanters Adrian and Rhys, Lord Seeker Lucius has not been seen since Andoral’s Reach.

* * *

She gets an answer of sorts when Seeker Cassandra arrives in Haven. She had left Val Royeaux ahead of them, and taken a slower route through Nevarra and the Free Marches, searching for Templars and Seekers would be loyal to the Divine. When the group of them arrives in Haven, it quadruples the population.

All seems in order until the Seeker, Josephine, Leliana, and the Divine hold a meeting, and the Seeker corrects Leliana when she refers to her as the leader of their loyal soldiers.

“I am in no position to command them,” she says. “I must be as free as you are, to serve as Her Most Holy requires.”

“Who will lead them, then?” Leliana asks.

“They have a leader,” is the Seeker’s answer. “The highest-ranking Templar to have joined our forces. Knight-Captain Rutherford, formerly of the Circle at Kirkwall.”

Josephine presses down hard enough with her pen that the metal nib cuts into the paper she is using to take notes. _Kirkwall?_ The _Knight-Captain_ of _the Gallows?_ What were they _thinking!_

“We are here to negotiate a _peace!_ ” she protests, appalled. “How are we to gain any trust with the mages if Knight-Commander Meredith’s right hand is the Commander of our troops, who are almost all Templars already! Surely Knight-Captain Briony-”

“She is the Captain of the Divine’s Guard,” Seeker Cassandra interrupts her. “She has her own duties already.”

“But _Cullen Rutherford,_ Cassandra,” Leliana presses. “You know what happened in Kirkwall, as do I. How could you accept him?”

Seeker Cassandra crosses her arms and glares. It is a formidable look, but Josephine cannot be distracted by it. As soon as Grand Enchanter Fiona hears about this- as soon as the _Wardens_ hear about this-

“He did not stand with Meredith in the end.”

“He did for four years!”

“And he has continued for nearly six years without her! Does that mean nothing!”

“It means little in the balance of the Gallows! And did you forget _why_ he was sent to Kirkwall? The mages of Kinloch Hold remember him little better!”

“Few of them survived the treachery in the Circle and Battle of Denerim. Most of the mages who called that Circle home when this war began were not even _there_ at the time, Leliana!”

“Because the survivors of Kinloch Hold were moved to _other Circles._ If you think they did not tell their new fellows of how Knight-Commander Greagoir abandoned his duties and what his replacement Captain did to those apprentices-”

“A rumor!”

“Because the Knight-Commander would not talk! It is a rumor only because it was mages who said so – and even discounting that, it is a _well-supported_ one, Cassandra! His behavior in Kirkwall-”

Josephine desperately ignores them and tries to make plans for this new diplomatic crisis. The Right and Left Hands continue arguing for some minutes before Divine Justinia finally steps in.

Cullen Stanton Rutherford is retained as Commander of the Divine’s forces in Haven.

Josephine could _scream._

* * *

In the next months, Josephine notices a distinct change in the composition of Haven’s residents and staff. It only makes sense, given their location, that most of their new arrivals are Fereldans.

But she does not think it is a coincidence that so many of them seem… terribly relaxed about the strictures of Andrasteanism. On Chantry days, the sanctuary is filled to bursting with Mothers and Sisters and Brothers in their vestments, but any other styles are severely lacking. When the work becomes too much and she braves the snow for a short time for the sake of a walk in the sun, she passes a copse of trees that have been discreetly but suggestively marked. It could mean nothing that she often overhears conversations conducted in Alamarri rather than Trade, or that there are a few strange oaths exclaimed in moments of frustration or surprise. Certainly the servants do not have amulets and talismans made by hedge witches tucked away in their clothes; and the boy who comes around in the mornings to stoke the fires does not get the flames to rise too quickly and keeps his hands out of sight and his body blocking the view of the hearth.

No one else seems suspicious. She mentions it obliquely to Leliana, and gets a twitch of the lips in return.

Very well. Infighting is not ideal, but if Leliana is taking on the job of undermining Seeker Cassandra’s poor decision, it is less work for her.

Not that Leliana does not make an overt move.

It is late winter and the weather is almost unbearably dreadful when Leliana _finally_ locates Lord Seeker Lucius. Josephine writes him, and the Grand Enchanter, and the Fereldans have managed to push the fighting out of their farmlands and confine it mostly to the Hinterlands outside Redcliffe and things move very fast.

Josephine is finalizing agreements to attend talks at the Temple of Sacred Ashes when she is informed that Divine Justinia’s contingency plan in case the talks fail is resurrecting the Inquisition.

“We will need an Inquisitor,” Leliana says. Josephine is paying partial attention – she was delivered a new letter from the mages at Soldiers’ Peak just before the meeting began, and is skimming it for any immediately relevant information. “And I believe I have just the person.”

 _“No,”_ Lord Revasina says, later. Leliana followed her back to her office from the meeting. Josephine had been expecting him so they could discuss logistics. He has been invaluable in managing the situation in Ferelden and providing insight that Josephine would not have otherwise had. It was he who had come up with the solution to the problem they had been facing with the mages – Lord Seeker Lucius has installed himself in Theirinfall Redoubt, in the north of the Brecilian Forest, but the mages have had nowhere similar. Lord Revasina had suggested that they might find Redcliffe suitable, as it is near enough Haven to be convenient for the tentatively-titled Conclave, but far enough away and on a few easy routes of escape that they could feel a measure of safety. Josephine has been discussing it with Queen Anora and Arl Teagan, but would have made no headway without his support. “No, no, and _no,_ Leliana. Absolutely not.”

“But he is _perfect,_ ” Leliana wheedles. “He has the prestige of the Sacred Ashes to satisfy the faithful. He is warrior enough for the Templars to respect and think twice about attacking him. The mages already trust him – they know he agrees with the vote for independence and will listen to them, protect them. Theron is exactly the foil to Rutherford and Justinia’s opponents that we need.”

She is not wrong. The thought of the Warden-Commander of Ferelden as Inquisitor is an odd one, but the potential relief of it takes some weight from Josephine’s shoulders.

“I say again: _no._ ”

“Surely he would not refuse to aid us in ending the war.”

“Ending the war, no. Becoming Inquisitor? _Absolutely._ ”

“And you can speak for him in this?”

“Even if he could be convinced to agree, you do not _want_ him for Inquisitor, Leliana. Truly, you do not. I cannot stress enough how terrible of a situation that would be.”

“But you could get a letter to him, if I wrote him?” Leliana presses.

Lord Revasina sighs.

The Arl-Commander sends back a fine parchment scroll delicately dyed a subtle shade of amaranth, tied shut with an intricately-braided warm-toned leather cord. Unrolled it is clearly meant to be a wall hanging, and is of the correct length to be easily seen in it’s entirety. The letters are done in an archaic but readable hand, written in black ink that still seems liquid despite being dry. The words themselves are the entire text of the Canticle of Shartan, beautifully illuminated in gold leaf and the jewel-toned inks reserved for the most special of occasions.

All the pictures are of humans being brutally killed by elves. Andraste and her army are nowhere in evidence as the Magisters and the Old Imperium are torn down.

It is one of the most underhanded replies Josephine has had the pleasure of witnessing.

* * *

By early spring of 9:42, the details of the Conclave have been finalized. It will commence on Summersday. A delegation from the mages and one from the Templars will meet with Divine Justinia and the Grand Clerics in the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Various high-ranking Chantry officials and a great deal of noble and royal houses will be invited to witness the proceedings and provide testimony about different aspects of the conflict if asked. Josephine and Guinevere will be writing invitations and formal announcements all day for at least the rest of the week. These must arrive for everyone to arrive in a timely manner.

All is set but for the final wrinkle in the Divine’s contingency plan. Josephine would have been happy to leave it be, but Leliana and Cassandra have not quite yet given up on their minor feud. Leliana’s attempted counter by seeking the Arl-Commander for Inquisitor has failed, so it is Cassandra’s turn again.

“Marian Hawke,” is her candidate. The arguing between the Hands begins.

Josephine will concede point that Marian Hawke did in fact manage to keep some sort of order in Kirkwall, and that she is also a reasonable balancing option for Commander Rutherford, if somewhat more notorious than Leliana’s preferred candidate.

But _practically,_ it makes little sense.

“Your points are sound, Seeker Cassandra,” Josephine cuts in. The Divine did not do so well mediating the last argument, and she will not wait for the woman to step in, this time. “But does she have the necessary experience? I am under the impression that most she has ever led is small squadrons without a formal hierarchy. She is Champion, yes – but unlike the Warden-Commander, she has deserted her post, as it were. Marian Hawke has not been seen in Kirkwall since 9:35, and there were only occasional reports of her from different locales in Ferelden up until 9:38 or 9:39. Do we even know where she is now? Or how we would find her?”

“I know _exactly_ who to ask,” Cassandra says grimly.

The Divine sends her to Kirkwall to find and speak with Varric Tethras. He is known to be a hard man to pin down when he doesn’t wish to talk, so Cassandra has orders to leave the city in time to return to Haven for the Conclave, even if she has not managed to corner him.

Josephine is not optimistic about the Seeker’s chances. Leliana had been just as confident that the Arl-Commander would be the solution, and that had not been the case.

No matter. Either it would be a success, or it would not. In the meantime, she must get back to work.

There is a future to arrange.


End file.
